four others in the company asked to be discharged, that they might
remain. The lieutenant let them go; and Samuel entered the employ of
the post, at two dollars and a half a day, with promise of advance.
“Anybody seen Derosier?” demanded Mr. Preuss, through the camp, on the
day before departure. Already had the camp been moved, in preliminary
start, up stream a short distance, to the ranch of Mr. Sinclair, former
mountain-man, now a farmer.
Nobody had.
“He’s been gone for three days. Does anybody _know_ anything about him?”
Nobody did.
And Baptiste Derosier, who had been acting oddly ever since that day,
back on the trail, when he had been lost, never was seen again, nor
even heard of. It was thought that he must have been drowned, or else
had been waylaid by Indians, among the hills. All the company were
sorry, for Baptiste was a willing worker and a “bon camarade.”
“Leve! Leve!” at dawn of March 24 resounded through the camp the
regulation trapper call to arise. To-day was the start to be made in
earnest.
With more horses and mules than ever, to the number of 130; with
twenty-five beef cattle and five milk cows; with plenty of flour and
coffee and sugar; well-stocked the expedition might proceed upon their
way. With them went an Indian boy, assigned by Captain Sutter to be
herder of the cavvy, for the horses and cattle were almost as wild as
buffalo. It would take an experienced Californian to drive them.
Captain Sutter himself, and several other whites from the fort escorted
the company a few miles, to say good-by and “good luck.”
Eleven hundred and forty-two miles from the Dalles of the Columbia or
3000 miles from Fort St. Vrain had stretched the Frémont and Carson
trail to New Helvetia. Now from New Helvetia to Bent’s Fort would be
3000 miles more. However, nobody shrank from the trail as planned. All
were strong again in body as they had been strong in heart, and their
ample pack-train gave them comfort. Nevertheless, for the first 2500
miles of their journey they could expect to find no settlement of any
kind save Indian village.
The lieutenant rode a splendid iron-gray Californian horse, named
Sacramento, a gift from Captain Sutter. The march was down the east
side of the Valley of the Sacramento, back somewhat from the river;
thence on into the Valley of the San Joachin, which was companion
valley reaching up from the south, to meet the Valley of the Sacramento
extending down from the north. The country was all that it had been
pictured by Kit Carson, and promised by the lieutenant: a country of
brilliant flowers, blue and yellow and white and purple, in great
masses; of abundant verdure and water; of great herds of elk, deer,
wild horses and cattle. And as Captain Sutter had declared, it was a
country unused.
As they rode, the lieutenant and Kit waxed more and more enthusiastic,
and Oliver heard them say that here was where they hoped some day to
live.
Mindful of the cautions as to the horse-stealing Indians, the march was
made strictly military. Scouts were placed ahead, and on the flanks,
to beat the brush; rifle-men formed van, and rear, and between van and
rear were the cavvy, pack-animals and cattle. However, no Indians were
sighted until, on April 8, 280 miles from New Helvetia, at the banks of
the Tulare River natives appeared.
As soon as these ascertained that the Frémont and Carson men were
not California soldiery, they gathered in friendly fashion, and
brought otter-skins, and fish, and bread and acorn-flour. They were
dark-skinned, handsome Indians. Several spoke Spanish, learned at the
missions. They were well-mannered――but the lieutenant and Kit thought
best, on the whole, to corral the animals, at night.
It was time that the pass should be near, on the left; the pass through
the mountain range, to the desert. A fine broad trail pointed off to
the southeast; and upon being questioned as to a pass in that direction
one of the Indians nodded, with a smile showing white teeth, and with a
“Si, señor; buen camino (Yes, sir; good road).” Following this trail,
on for the desert rode the Frémont and Carson company.
The landscape was growing sandy and more bare. Diverging to the left,
to ascend along a creek, the company entered, not Walker Pass, but that
Tehachepi Pass through which to-day penetrates from desert California
into valley California the Santa Fé Railroad, overland line.
While encamped at the western side of the Tehachepi Pass the camp
received another visitor. Down the pleasantly wooded slope he
came riding, with many a jingle and much graceful sway of body――a
combination of knight-errant and cowboy; and a romantic sight he made.
He wore a large, peaked hat; short braided jacket reaching scarcely
to his waist; black velvet trousers tight at the hips, flaring at the
bottoms, and slashed along the seams with white; a sash of crimson;
yellow goat-skin boots armed with the huge Spanish spurs. Bridle and
saddle were lavishly decorated; chains dangled from the one, brass
tacks glistened in the other. But he was no Spaniard or Mexican; he
was an Indian.
“Buenas noches, señors,” he greeted, cordially, in excellent Spanish.
“Good evening. I saw you enter the pass, and I have come down to bid
you have no fear.”
“To whom do we speak?” asked the lieutenant.
“To a Christian Indian, señor. I am from the mission San Fernando,
near to the Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles (the Town
of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels),” he explained. “I have been, by
permission of the fathers, to visit my relatives in the Sierras, beyond
here. Looking back, I saw you.”
“We are much obliged, señor,” answered the lieutenant, gravely. “Alight
and sit. You are acquainted with the country?”
“Perfectly.”
“We are on our way east, to the American States. What lies across this
range?”
“An arid, burning desert, señor; impossible for man or beast.”
“I remember it,” quoth Kit Carson, nodding. “I war across it with Ewing
Young.”
“Lower down, señor,” corrected the Indian, politely. “By the Spanish
Trail.”
“That war ’fore the Spanish Trail had been broken through; but it mout
have been lower down, o’ course.”
“Then we cannot cross directly eastward?” queried the lieutenant.
“No, señor. Even the Indians cannot. It is the Mohave Desert. But if
you desire to travel east, after crossing this pass you should follow
south along the foot of the mountains, where is water and grass, to the
Spanish Trail to Santa Fé. By this route have just returned six Indians
of a great river of the desert, who have been here trading with my
people. For two days on my way to San Fernando I am travelling the same
road, myself, and I will gladly be your guide.”
They thanked him, and accepted his offer.
XXI
THE VENGEANCE OF KIT CARSON
The Christian Indian of the San Fernando mission rejoined the march,
the next morning; amidst gooseberries, humming-birds, and yellow
flowers, looked down upon by snow-caps, the pass was threaded; and
a very different crossing of the Sierra Range was this, from that
experienced but a few weeks back!
Unexpectedly to all the company, as the trail wound down among the
foot-hills on the eastern side of the range the desert unfolded to
view. There it lay, waiting, like a flat, prone dragon. There it lay,
as the guide had asserted: arid, burning, white-hot, with occasional
blackish ridges breaking its surface like scales, and with its fevered
breath, like a mist, quivering above.
“The great llanos――plains,” announced the guide, dramatically waving
his hand. “They have no water, they have no grass; every animal that
goes upon them dies.”
“The Mohave Desert, I reckon it air,” said Kit Carson, meditatively
surveying. “I crossed it twice, on that Californy trip, but the trail
we made war lower down.”
“By the Mohave River, señor, perhaps,” suggested the guide.
“Guess so.”
“That is lower to the south. The Spanish Trail which your company will
take follows along it.”
On April 17, three weeks from New Helvetia, among the ridges by which
the mountains tapered to the desert was encountered a little trail
cutting east and west across the southward march. Scarcely could it
be traced, so faint and rarely trodden was it; but the guide at once
turned east, upon it.
“It is the trail between the Spanish Trail, east, and the mission San
Buenaventura, next to Santa Barbara, on the coast,” he said.
He rode a few miles, and halted.
“Adios,” he spoke. And indicating the thread-like trail: “This is the
road. It does not lose itself; it continues on. Follow it, and you will
reach the Spanish Trail ahead of the great spring caravan out of the
Pueblo de los Angeles for Santa Fé of New Mexico; so you will find the
grass uneaten. By that black hill yonder is water. Now I must turn off
for San Fernando.”
The lieutenant and Kit and Mr. Preuss and Mr. Talbot and others in
the van shook hands with him, thanking him again; and the lieutenant
further rewarded him with presents of knives and bright cloth. Amidst
mutual “Adios (a Dios――God with you),” he left, galloping away for the
mission San Fernando Rey de España (Saint Ferdinand King of Spain),
north of the Pueblo de los Angeles which is to-day the City Los Angeles.
Through draws blazing with flowers purple, lemon and orange, and richly
perfumed, the Frémont and Carson company followed the little trail
eastward until at the dark ridge out upon a sandy plain they camped
with water but no grass.
For two days and a half the little trail led eastward. Then, on the
afternoon of the third day, April 20, the advance scouts shouted and
waved and waited. When Oliver, with the van, arrived at the spot, he
also joined in the shout, although not wholly knowing why――save that
here the little trail united with a broad, well-defined trail, north
and south.
“The Spanish Trail from Californy to Santy Fee, captain,” announced Kit
Carson.
“It must be,” agreed the lieutenant. “And it takes us north, boys! Now
we can cross the mountains by way of the Great Salt Lake and the Utah
Lake, to strike the head of the Arkansas. We’re not to be cheated out
of the fine country.”
“Hooray!” they cheered.
“It’s good-by to Californy,” remarked Kit, to the lieutenant, as now
the cavalcade turned into this broad trail.
“We’ll come again, Kit,” asserted Lieutenant Frémont.
And they did; to win the fair land for the United States, and the
lieutenant to make here his home, as he had hoped.
So this was the famous Old Spanish Trail, was it; this bare road of
rocky sand scarred by many hoofs, stretching on indefinitely athwart
the rolling, sparsely verdured plains?
“You might think it’s called the Spanish Trail ’cause the names on it
air all Spanish,” narrated Kit Carson, as with Oliver he ambled in the
dust. “But like as not it’s called so ’cause the old Spanish Fathers
started it, at t’other end, in their missionary trips out o’ Santy Fee.
They never cut it through, though. An American did that. I knew his
family in Missouri. He war a trader, ’twixt Missouri an’ New Mexico.
His name war William Wolfskill; an’ in fall o’ Eighteen-thirty he tuk
a trading caravan out o’ Santy Fee for Los Angeles, an’ he made this
trail to try north o’ the Heely (Gila) River trail. He thought he’d
find better grass. It’s regular caravan trail, for hosses an’ mules to
Santy Fee, an’ calico an’ blankets an’ stuff back ag’in.”
“Seems to me that some of these tracks in the trail are fresh,”
commented the lieutenant, riding up.
“So I war thinking,” replied Kit. “Fresh hoof-tracks, an’ some fresh
Injun tracks. Thar must be a caravan party on ahead o’ the main travel;
an’ those Injun tracks likely air the six fellows spoken of by that
mansito. But in sech a wind, blowing the sand, sign air hard to read.”
An unpleasant gale was raging――a furious, constant blast as the cooler
air of the mountains on the west rushed down to fill the vacuum caused
by the rising hot air of the desert on the east. The Spanish Trail
continued, well marked, but with its sharp rocks speedily setting the
animals to limping. It was a trail rougher than any part of the Oregon
Trail. Oliver heard the lieutenant regretting that the cavvy had not
been shod.
The trail had been skirting a river, curious but refreshing as it
flowed briskly and sparkling between low banks of the whitish sand.
A few cottonwoods and willows grew along it. Oliver observed that
although they were descending it, it was getting smaller instead of
larger――an odd circumstance.
“It’s the Mohave, I reckon,” stated Kit. “At least, when I came out
with Ewing Young we followed up a river ’bout like this, hyar, on our
way from the Colorado to the Californy missions. You watch it, an’
you’ll see something.”
The next morning the lieutenant, during the ride, spoke suddenly:
“There goes our river!”
All near him looked. Kit Carson chuckled quietly.
“Yes; it’s flopped for a spell. Now it’ll flow bottom-side-up till it’s
ready to turn over ag’in: the bed’s on top an’ the water’s under. It’s
the Mohave, sure――tho’ I’ve seen other rivers like it.”
“Remarkable!” ejaculated Mr. Preuss, much interested. “It burrows like
a gopher of the plains.”
“Brave stream! I teenk she gets weak by the sun an’ goes under to get
strong, encore,” proffered Alexander Godey, gayly.
“What it does is to follow the bed-rock,” explained the lieutenant.
“The water sinks to the rock. Where the rock stratum lies deep, the
water disappears in the sand; where the rock stratum approaches the
surface, the water is brought above the sand again.”
For about sixteen miles the course of the stream was dust-dry; then,
suddenly, out had popped the water, in a series of welcome pools.
By the tokens of bones and rags this evidently was a customary
camping-ground, between marches. When Oliver, who had been busy helping
herd the cavvy, returned to the fires, he beheld there six strange
Indians――the six who had been spoken of by the mansito guide, and who
had been in advance of the company.
Five were Mohaves, and one was a California Indian who lived with them.
All were naked; the Mohaves, of coppery bronze skin, straight legs,
tall erect stature, were the handsomest Indians whom Oliver ever had
seen. The party were equipped with unusually long bows, and each man
carried a gourd, slung in a cord mesh, for water. The Californian spoke
some Spanish, learned at the missions. He said that they came from a
large village of the Mohaves at the crossing of the River Colorado,
below the large canyons, in the desert three days’ travel eastward.
“I remember the village,” confirmed Kit. “Captain Young crossed thar,
when we came out in Twenty-nine. Injuns war peaceable: we bought a fat
mare to eat, an’ some squash, for we war nigh starved. But same Injuns
had attacked another party, at the crossing, year before, so we war
watching sharp.”
From the camp where the Indians joined, the Frémont and Carson company
followed a little further down the erratic Mohave River, eastward,
although the main trail veered more northward, for the ridges. The six
Indians were afoot. They claimed that when they brought back horses the
northern desert Indians stole them. They also claimed to be poor and
hungry; and when, upon the next day’s march, three cattle, miserably
worn, must be killed, after the camp had satisfied itself the six fell
to until they had left only the bones.
The Indians’ banquet began in the afternoon and continued all the
night. While Oliver and Jacob the colored youth (to whom the Mohaves
were as interesting as he was curious to them) were watching them as by
daylight they hacked and tore at the carcasses, from the camp welled a
significant murmur.
“Somebody coming――riding from the no’th,” announced Jacob. “Looks laike
they’re in a monstrous hurry. What foh, I wonder. Huh! Two men.”
“Man and boy; Mexicans,” proclaimed Oliver, keener of sight.
Yes, by token of their serapes, or blanket-scarfs enveloping their
shoulders, and their bell-brimmed, high conical hats, Mexicans they
were; and man and boy they were; riding desperately, upon foaming,
sweating horses, across the trackless sand and rocks, for the camp. As
soon as they arrived they were surrounded by an excited audience, and
reeling in their saddles were telling their story. The man, with many
rapid gestures, and staccato exclamations from the boy as well as from
himself, was the chief speaker.
“We are Mexicans, señors,” he panted. “Two out of a party of six in
advance of the main caravan from the Pueblo de los Angeles for Santa
Fé. Thirty horses we had, and we thought by setting out ahead we should
get the better grass. Ay de mi! And what happened! The other four
were my dear wife, the mother and father of this boy, and a friend
Santiago Giacome, who was our guide. We found good grass, and at the
camping-place of the Archilette, about eighty miles beyond here, on
the main trail, señors, we at last made halt to wait for the caravan
to overtake us. We had gone into the desert far enough, being few in
numbers. But after we had been at the Archilette, unmolested, for more
than a day, señors, several Indians ventured to visit us, from where
they had been watching us. They left us, with good words, but in a
few days afterward came back with an immense crowd, an army of them,
señors; and before we could prepare defence they charged, shooting and
yelling. We were only six, and two of us women, with thirty horses.
Pablo (and he indicated the boy) and I were on horse-guard; part of
the barbarians surrounded the herd, but Giacome shouted to us to take
it and flee――we must save the horses while he and this boy’s father
fought to protect the women. So we did, the boy and I: we drove the
animals right through the savages, and at full speed, with halts only
to change saddles from one mount to another, we traversed back down
the trail, until this morning we reached the camping spot of Agua de
Tomaso, about twenty miles from here. Now having left the herd there,
lest the savages should overtake us as well as it, we were hastening on
to meet the caravan and inform it, when we sighted your camp, señors.
Ay de mi! Alas and alas! Our four companions, two of them women, are
murdered――and by this time the horses also are gone!”
“Ay de mi! Mi madre y mi padre!” wailed the boy. “Alas! My mother and
my father!”
During the recital the company had listened intensely; and now at
the close there was a sudden outburst of ejaculations. Some of the
men――Baptiste Tabeau, Alexander Godey, Jacob, Sergeant Zindel, and
others――were determined to start at once, to the scene of the attack.
The lieutenant restrained them.
“Wait,” he cautioned. “I cannot divide the force, boys. We have the
camp to look after, to-night. The savages may be coming down the trail.
To-morrow we will know better what to do.”
“It’d be dark ’fore we got to the place whar the hosses war left,”
reminded Kit, agreeing with the lieutenant. “Injuns’ll travel fast, for
a ways, after they take the herd, till they think they airn’t being
pursued; then they’ll stop for a feast. We’ll catch ’em jest as soon if
we start to-morrow, when they’ve slackened up.”
Thomas Fitzpatrick concurred.
The Mexican man’s name was Andrés Fuentes; the boy’s name was Pablo
Hernandez. He was about eleven years old, and with his large black
eyes, white teeth, smooth brown skin and regular oval features was a
handsome little fellow. The twain were told to dismount, and stay. The
lieutenant took them into his own mess, and promised them that on the
morrow he would do what he could to avenge their wrongs.
Early in the morning the camp was moving, setting course north to enter
the main trail, only a few miles distant. Here were many blackish,
rocky, bare ridges, with gullies of gravel and sand between. The
gullies formed in the spring the beds of streams; and in places wolves
had been smart enough to dig little wells, until two feet down they
reached the water which they had smelled!
After twenty miles, Andrés Fuentes pointed ahead.
“The Agua de Tomaso――the Thomas Spring, señors. But I see no horses.”
Pablo began to cry, as his memories revived.
The advance scouts, whom Andrés and Pablo were guiding, spread and rode
more cautiously, reconnoitring; but the Spring of Thomas was deserted;
neither horse-herd nor Indians were there.
The signs were easy to read: the Indians had come in, afoot, from
several directions, and had gone out driving the herd.
“I think we’d better follow those rascals, lieutenant, an’ teach ’em a
lesson, or the trail won’t be safe for travel, all the year,” said Kit
Carson. “If the Injuns get away unpunished, with these hyar hosses,
they’ll take more. They’ll consider they’re boss.”
“Well,” answered the lieutenant, “go ahead, Kit. How many men do you
want?”
“Godey an’ I’ll do. This Mexican’ll come, too, if we’ll lend him a
fresh hoss.”
“Three of you, to tackle fifty?” queried the lieutenant. “Isn’t that a
pretty big job?”
“Wall, I reckon we’re enough to stampede the animals, an’ raise a
little ha’r if necessary,” asserted Kit, quietly. “Godey’s wuth a dozen
ordinary men; an’ the Mexican’s wife air captured, you remember.”
“All right, Kit,” responded the lieutenant. “But we’re not asking
you, or anybody, to go. That’s a risky proposition, pursuing Indians
into the desert, and fighting somebody else’s battle. These are
Mexicans――and their own caravan will be along, soon.”
“Mexicans or not, they’re human beings, lieutenant,” declared Kit,
refilling his powder-flask. “Pore critters! Think o’ having yore own
wife out thar, at the mercy o’ the savages. An’ thar’ll be other
parties travelling the trail, with women an’ property. No, sir; those
Injuns ought to be taught a lesson.”
Well mounted and armed, rode away Kit and Godey and Fuentes the
Mexican. Now was it mid-afternoon; the company remained in camp at the
Agua de Tomaso, to await their return.
There was little talk save upon the one topic: the venture of the two
knights errant and their eager companion.
In the dusk of evening a single figure was seen, returning from the
direction wherein three had ridden. He came on slowly. The camp was
alarmed. It was Fuentes, who explained that his horse had failed, but
that Kit Carson and Godey were sticking to the trail.
The night passed; the morning passed, and the sun crossed the zenith to
afternoon. The lieutenant fidgeted, ill at ease, for Kit and Godey did
not reappear.
“They’ll come, captain, but they’ll find those Injuns first,” assured
Thomas Fitzpatrick. “I know Kit and I know Godey. They’ll run that
trail to the end. Kit never quits when once he has started.”
Scarcely had he spoken, when shrill and clear pierced the hot air a
faint, distant halloo――a long, high, quavering whoop, drifting in from
the black ridge to the north.
“A scalp halloo, or I’m an Injun myself!” exclaimed Fitzpatrick.
“There’s Kit and Godey, with good news, I’ll wager.”
Again rose the scalp halloo. All eyes were fastened upon the ridge
which closed the vista in that direction. Presently out from around a
shoulder concealing a little pass emerged a jostling bunch of horses;
two riders were driving; at rapid trot and lope they crossed the little
strip of plain, for the camp.
“Kit and Godey! I told you!” cried Thomas Fitzpatrick. “Look at the
hosses?”
“The very horses! Those are they――I recognize them; don’t you, Pablo?”
claimed Fuentes, jubilantly; and he added, now mournful: “But I see
only the two persons――the same who went. Ay de mi!”
“Ay de mi! Mi madre y mi padre!” wailed Pablo.
“Godey――he has scalps! See, on his gun!” directed Baptiste Tabeau,
capering. “Yes! Two! Tied to the end of his gun!”
“They overtook the Indians as well as the horses,” remarked the
lieutenant.
With whoop from Kit Carson and wide smile from Godey, triumphant
the twain rode in. As said by Baptiste, from the end of Godey’s
long-barrelled rifle dangled two fresh scalps, of black, Indian hair.
How the camp cheered. As soon as the horses had been thrown in with
herd, around Kit and Godey gathered the camp, breathless to hear the
story.
“Oh, Godey can tell it,” responded to the inquiries Kit. “Thar’s
nothing to tell, anyhow. We followed the trail an’ found the Injuns an’
took the hosses an’ a couple o’ scalps, an’ hyar we air.”