Santiago? Nothing of them?”
“Nothing of them, amigo,” said Kit Carson, gently; and turned away.
Godey, by no means loath, was recounting, in his dramatic French
fashion, while to his words his auditors, particularly the other
French, wagged their heads.
“At night we entered the mountains, but as you know there is a moon
enough, and we followed the trail clear till midnight. We rode hard,
my friends, for we are two mountain-men, and not afraid of these dogs
of Pah-Utes, who eat horses and lizards. Then in a black gulch we
must stop. Here the moon, being low, did not shine, and the trail was
faint among the rocks. We must dismount, and upon hands and knees feel
for it. By the sign we knew that the savages were only a few hours in
advance of us. They had not eaten, and soon they would wish to taste
horse. That is the use to which these desert Indians put the horse and
the mule: they eat him, they do not ride him. So lest we lose the trail
altogether we tied our horses, and without fire, that we should not be
spied upon, in our saddle-blankets we slept upon the cold rocks until
daylight. Now might we make a very small fire, of the dried sage, which
gave off no smoke, by which we warmed our hands and cooked breakfast.
Through the gulch we rode, and after about two miles we sighted the
rascally savages. There were four lodges of them, down in a bottom
between bare hills. They thought that no one had pursued them, and
that they were secure; for their horses were grazing without guard,
and they themselves, about thirty in number, were feasting on horse,
boiled and roasted. We could see the kettles and the steaks. Ma foi,
my friends, but they were making very merry. Kit and I, we tied our
horses below a ridge, and crept down for the horse-herd. By throwing
stones and twigs at them we would edge them away, slowly, until we
might stampede them. We were doing well, when, name of a dog! A fool
of a young horse saw us on all fours, and up went his heels and how he
snorted! That was enough. The Indians sprang to their arms. ‘Come!’
said Kit. ‘At them before they have any time!’ So down we charged, we
two, yelling, and as bold as if we were two hundred. ‘Crack!’ spoke our
rifles; but hein――one Indian fell; only one. ‘Scalp for me!’ I claimed.
‘I count coup on that fellow,’ claimed Kit. Pshaw! We had both shot
at the same! No matter. I reloaded first, and at the crack I wiped
out another. By this time arrows were whizzing around us, from those
long, stout bows; one passed through my shirt-collar. Here――see? But
the savages had enough; away they scampered, climbing the hills, and
hiding in the rocks. They left a boy, and the two dead men. These two
we scalped――when, horrible, the one who was shot twice, through and
through, jumped up, howling. Wagh! I hope never to see another such a
sight! When he howled, and before we could do what we must do, an old
squaw, climbing the hill, stopped and looked back and shook her fist
at us and cursed us. Maybe she was the dead man’s mother; who knows?
Now we were in possession of the camp, which was cleverly hidden in a
little bottom or draw, with a good spring. Four or five of the horses
had been killed, for a big feast; they were cut up, all ready to fill
the pots again. Many more Indians were expected; the pots, and baskets
of fifty or sixty moccasins showed this. As for the boy, when he found
that he was not to die immediately at our hands, he sat down and gnawed
at a horse-head. Ma foi! What lack of feeling! Well, my friends, we
destroyed the camp, and left there the boy, eating his horse-head, and
collecting the horses we took the back trail.”
“Bravo! Good!” congratulated the company.
“You saw nothing of the Mexican prisoners?” queried the lieutenant.
Godey shook his head.
“No, captain. There was no sign. We think that they must be with
the other party of the savages or else――――” and Godey shrugged his
shoulders, significantly.
The lieutenant spoke to Fuentes, informing him. And Fuentes, and Pablo
the lad, having shaken the hands of Kit and of Godey, thanking them
for the scout, enveloped themselves in their serapes, apart. Sorrow
sat heavy upon them. What were the horses, as compared with wife, and
father and mother, and friend?
Oliver overheard the lieutenant talking with Theodore Talbot, the
Washington tenderfoot who had won veteran’s service-stripes.
“There you see an example of mountain-man work, Talbot,” was saying
the lieutenant. “That’s the spirit beyond the western frontier. Here
we have two men trailing Indians――a wily foe――fifty miles through an
unknown country; attacking their camp, which showed four lodges, each
lodge presumed to mean five to eight or more persons; driving the
Indians out, and returning, with the horses, fifty miles again; all
in thirty hours. And why? Not only for general good, but to avenge
the wrongs suffered by Mexicans who also were strangers. I tell you,
Talbot, you’ll never meet with a bolder, finer deed of arms. And who
performed it? Kit Carson, of Kentucky parentage and Missouri breeding,
and Alexander Godey, St. Louis Frenchman: Americans, both.”
XXII
POOR TABEAU PAYS THE PRICE
Scalp Camp was christened this camp, of April 25 and 26, at the Agua
de Tomaso or Thomas Spring, latitude 35° 13′ 08″, longitude 116°
23′ 28″, on the Old Spanish Trail in the northern part of the San
Bernardino Desert, southeastern California. Ahead upon the trail was
the camping-spot of the Archilette, where had been made the attack upon
the caravan camp. Thither by forced march proceeded the company.
The Mexican Fuentes informed that the first stretch awaiting was a dry
journey of forty or fifty miles. To avoid the heat of day the company
pushed on at once, as the sun was setting. While northeastwardly they
travelled, by the warm moonlight were revealed to them many white
skeletons of horses and mules, strewn along the way; and this was the
sign of a dry jornada. Forty-three miles were put behind ere halt was
made, before dawn, at a salty, swampy place, illy fitted to refresh.
The moon had sunk; but here also the light of dawn disclosed skeletons
of animals which had perished from weakness.
On the morning of April 29 they were traversing a singularly silent,
blasted country of blackish ridges and twisted, squat, repulsive cactus.
“The Archilette is just beyond, señor capitan,” directed Fuentes.
With eyes and ears alert the advance quickened their pace. From a low
ridge of bare rocks Fuentes pointed to a spot of brush and greenness in
a sandy basin before.
“That is it,” he said.
“Come, boys!” urged the lieutenant. “Charge it.” And down at a gallop,
rifles and carbines ready, they galloped――the lieutenant on his gray
Sacramento keeping the front, Kit racing him hard, Godey and Tabeau and
Talbot and Jacob, eager Oliver and anxious Fuentes and little Pablo,
and all, thudding to overtake.
But the spring of the Archilette lay unresponsive, seemingly without
life. Only, before a willow lean-to which had been a shelter was the
mutilated body of Pablo’s father, the Hernandez, with both legs and one
arm missing. He had stood stanch in defence of his wife. Near by, in
another willow lean-to, was the body of Santiago Giacome, a powerful
frame, also pierced with arrows. The savages long had departed, and
they must have borne with them the mother of Pablo and the wife of
Fuentes.
While the party were sorrowfully regarding, out from the bushes crept a
small Mexican lap-dog――suddenly, with glad yelps to leap upon Pablo’s
legs and lick his hand. The Hernandez dog he was; and not having been
noted by the Indians he had remained in lonely vigil here, at this
dreadful place, watching and waiting. How glad he was to see Pablo
his young master! Pablo picked him up, and carrying him walked along
wailing, distracted:
“Mi padre! Mi madre! Ay, mi padre y mi madre! (My father! My mother!
Oh, my father and my mother!)”
Fuentes wrapped his head in his serape, thus to mourn.
None in the company wished to stay here, but there was no other
camping-spot, and the animals must have water. The lieutenant wrote
upon a piece of paper a brief story of the tragedy, and by a cleft
stick planted it so that the approaching caravan might know what
had befallen their comrades. The Archilette was renamed Hernandez
Spring――Agua de Hernandez. It is in extreme Southwestern Nevada.
The march was waxing cruelly severe upon the animals. By water
and grass were they grudgingly nourished, but by the rocks of the
innumerable ridges were their hoofs cut to the quick. Mule and horse
dropped daily. When they died by pain and exhaustion, or must be shot,
Fuentes the Mexican quickly cut off mane and tail for hair bridles,
saddle-girths, etc.
Amidst increasing hills, abloom with cacti and acacia, and over a low
snowy mountain into another skeleton-strewn dry jornada, of almost
sixty miles, rode the Frémont and Carson men. By chewing the acid sour
dock, and by sucking at the pulpy bisnaga cactus known to Fuentes the
Mexican, they moistened their thirst; until at midnight the California
mules, breaking into a run, gave warning of water scented more than a
mile before. This was the Rio de los Angeles, or River of the Angels,
tributary to the Virgin River which itself flows south into the
canyoned Colorado.
Upon the bluffy bank of the Rio de los Angeles, to-day styled only the
Muddy River, must camp be pitched. At daybreak Indians swarmed down.
With the first sight of them, frightened Pablo and his little dog ran
to hide in a tent and Fuentes the man exclaimed, in furious Spanish:
“There they are! The murderers! The same people who killed at the
Archilette! Curses on them!”
A bare-footed, bare-skinned, under-sized tribe they were, ill-looking,
their hair tied in a knot atop their sharp, restless-eyed faces. Many
of them carried hooked sticks, with which they hauled out lizards and
other vermin from holes, to cook them and eat them. All the men bore
the long, stout desert bow, and wore a quiver bristling with thirty or
forty arrows fitted to points of volcanic glass, or obsidian.
Every Indian who would enter the lines of the camp was told to leave
his bow and arrows outside; but defying the orders an old chief and
several companions forced their way in, bow in one hand, two or three
arrows ready in the other, and quiver at back.
“Vamose! Puk-a-chee! Get out! Outside!” were volleyed at him the cries;
and he impudently put his fingers in his ears, as sign that he could
not hear.
Gazing about the camp, he counted on his fingers the inmates――including
a mule that was being shod! He counted twenty-two.
“Why, there are none of you,” he jeered. “But of us――――” and he pointed
to the hills and mountains, “there are many, many.” He pointed to the
rifles, of which he appeared to think little. “You have those.” He
twanged his bow. “We have these!”
Up sprang Kit Carson, who had been sitting near. His tanned face was
white-hot, his grayish eyes flamed bright blue. The filthy Indian’s
contemptuous, ignorant words had stung him to the quick. He was the Kit
Carson of the Kiowa fight, at the wagon-train corral on the Santa Fé
Trail. Not since then had Oliver witnessed him so angry.
He had cocked his rifle; with one hand he clenched it, and the other
hand he shook under the Indian’s nose.
“Don’t say that, old man!” he bade, in short, stern tone. “Don’t say
that, unless you want to die.”
He spoke in English; and the old chief recoiled, his eyes darting the
venom of a snake’s, as if he understood.
Oliver stepped forward, ready to help the man he loved. Through the
camp sped the click of gun-locks.
“Steady, Kit,” now warned the lieutenant, alarmed. “We’re avoiding
trouble, remember. He’s only an ignorant Digger.”
“No Injun, Digger or not, can come into camp whar I am an’ talk that
way. We’re boss in this camp; it’s our camp,” declaimed Kit, still
angry. “They can insult us from outside, ’cause that air Injun way;
but if we once get to letting ’em in, with arms, they’ll massacree us,
sure. This ought to be stopped right at the start, captain.” And again
he applied himself to the hateful old chief. “Get out! Go!” Pointing,
with stamp of foot, while he relaxed not his glare, Kit Carson at that
moment looked to Oliver as fancy once had painted him――eight feet tall
and four broad.
Slightly wilting, but defiant, the old chief and his squad reluctantly
slunk away.
“Well,” commented the lieutenant, when all breathed easier, “that old
fellow was nearer his end than he ever will be again until he meets it.”
Several horses and mules had been left behind, on the trail, to be
brought along, later, after they had rested. Thomas Fitzpatrick, who
had gone back after them, now reported that they had been killed by
the Indians, cut up, and the fragments spread upon the brush, to cure.
This evening the lieutenant turned over to some of the Indians another
horse, for a feast; but instead of pleasing the tribe it only made
those Indians who got none the more insulting.
It was the late afternoon of May 9, and the company had travelled
twenty-eight miles up the Virgin River from the point where, twenty
miles across from the Muddy, they had struck it. Now they were encamped
in the northwestern corner of Arizona, at the foot of the Beaver Dam
Mountains, and about opposite the stream which here comes into the
Virgin. The camp was drowsy, after long and ceaseless vigils. A high
wind had died away to merely a faint breeze which scarcely disturbed
the summer temperature. Over the mountain ranges to the north rested
masses of white cloud, which the sun, about to set, was tinging pink.
A strong horse-guard was out with the animals, in charge of Baptiste
Tabeau. Two sentries watched the camp, from either end. Most of the
members off duty were dozing; but the hour was at hand when the mess
fires must be built up. The lieutenant had been asleep, in his lodge,
for three hours. The outlines of him could be seen, through the open
flaps, and under the raised edges.
As Oliver, who was sitting cleaning his rifle, glanced at him again,
the lieutenant stirred, as if awake; at that moment Kit Carson,
buckskin-clad, wiry little man, came striding quick, rifle, as
customary, in hollow of left arm.
“You awake, captain?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Haven’t seen Tabeau, have you?”
“Baptiste?” The lieutenant sat up. “No. He’s on horse-guard, isn’t he?”
“Wall, he rode down the trail, after his lame mule we left at t’other
camp a mile below.”
“Hasn’t he come back?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“How long ago?”
“This morning.”
“What!” The lieutenant hastily stood. “Who gave him permission?”
“Don’t know. He tuk it, I reckon. Knew we needed the mule.”
“I’ve been asleep for some time. He may have come into camp.” The
lieutenant spied Oliver. “Have you seen Tabeau, boy?”
“No, sir.”
The lieutenant joined Kit, outside the lodge.
“This must be looked into. He ought not to have done it――he ought to
have notified us and have taken a squad.”
“It war only a mile, he said; so I hear,” observed Kit.
“A mile is a long way, in Injun country, Kit. Hello! What’s that?” and
the lieutenant pointed.
The eyes of all persons thus notified leaped to the spot. About a mile
below, or down the river, had up-welled into the calm evening air a
column of thick white smoke.
“Tabeau’s gone,” exclaimed Kit, instantly. “That’s a coup smoke, to
tell a scalp’s been taken an’ everybody should look out!”
“You think it means Tabeau, then?”
“Sartin. That’s whar he started for――that cottonwood grove whar the
camp war. The smoke’s at the very place.”
“Take whatever you can get the quickest and go down there at once,”
ordered the lieutenant. “If you ride hard you may not be too late.”
“We’ll ride hard, but we’ll be too late, captain,” answered Kit,
already striding away.
As he passed, he responded to Oliver’s appealing gaze.
“That rifle ready?” He must have noticed the cleaning operation.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get yore hoss an’ come along. See that you don’t lack powder, lead or
caps.” And not having paused, Kit Carson continued upon his own way.
Quickly spread the word, that Baptiste Tabeau had been “wiped out.”
Many more volunteers offered themselves to Kit than he could use.
Everybody liked Tabeau; everybody wished to succor him, or to avenge
him. However, Kit deemed that a small party, if well-armed, would be
enough; so he chose Oliver, and Baptiste Bernier, Charles Townes,
Godey, and Thomas Fitzpatrick――mountain-men all.
Scarcely a word was spoken, as they galloped forth. The errand was one
of sorrow and grim determination.
The mile was covered, and the last night’s camping place lay right
ahead. Now the high, gloomy ridges bordering the Virgin were closing
down, and the camping place appeared sombre. Extending their front the
posse rode right in――eye and ear and finger ready; but it was as silent
and deserted as had been the Hernandez Spring at the Archilette. Of
Baptiste and his horse, and of the lame mule which he had quested, not
a trace could be found.
“Better ride on down,” suggested Charles Townes.
“Ought to search those cottonwoods, across,” said Kit.
“That’s a risky business, in the dark, when Injuns are better than
white men,” remarked Thomas Fitzpatrick, nevertheless urging his horse
into the water. Oliver promptly did the same.
“I know it, Tom,” answered Kit. “But we’ll have to take the risk.”
Alexander Godey interrupted. He had been examining for sign, on down
the trail.
“Here,” he called. “I find it! The lame mule, an’ the savages beside
him. En avant, camarades! The savages would drive off the mule, an’
Baptiste, he follows.”
Godey had read truly. Where he awaited, in the dusk could be descried,
imprinted upon the sandy dust, hoof-marks of a hobbling mule, pointing
back down the trail, with the bare soles of Indians on either side of
them. Moreover, the hoof-marks of a horse, probably Tabeau’s horse,
also were to be descried, pointing in the same direction, but printed
_upon_ the others――therefore later.
So they followed the trail. After about an hour of steady, silent
riding, a rustle in some bushes was heard.
“S-st!” warned Kit.
They halted, short, and peered, and listened, holding breath. Kit
and Godey slipped from their horses, to steal forward, noiseless as
shadows. Presently they returned, as silently.
“It’s the mule,” reported Kit. “It’s the lame mule, with an arrow in
her side, standing thar, to die. They shot her an’ left her till they’d
come back.”
“Anything of Baptiste?” demanded Fitzpatrick.
“We found a wet place――wet an’ sticky――in the brush. Too dark to say
jest what it air,” stated Kit, succinctly. “But it, an’ the smoke,
taken together, strike me as bad. Don’t believe we can do more till
daylight. We mout as well go back to camp.”
That was agreed; and sorrowfully again they rode up the trail, soon to
be guided by the glow of the camp fires.
Little doubt could there be as to Baptiste Tabeau’s fate, but of
course his disappearance must be probed to a certainty. At day-break
the lieutenant himself, with Thomas Fitzpatrick and Kit and Godey and
several others (Oliver being assigned to guard duties), departed for
the wounded-mule brush, in search of further sign.
When they returned, about noon, they brought only the news which had
been feared. Daylight had shown the worst: crimson stains and crushed
bushes where Baptiste must have been pierced with an arrow; a crimson
path for twenty paces, where he had desperately struggled along; a
spot where he had fallen; and then the trace where he had been dragged
to the river and thrown in. A shred of leather, from his saddle, was
found; but all else――horse, gun, clothing――had vanished completely. The
Diggers had taken them. Even the wounded mule was gone.
Thus, May 9, 1844, perished wilderness-breaker Baptiste Tabeau, Frémont
man from St. Louis. The place of his death is on the left bank of the
Virgin River in northwestern Arizona. So, in many a lonely spot, sleep
the brave; their monument their deeds achieved for others.
XXIII
THE HOME STRETCH
Fain would the Frémont and Carson men have taken the war trail and
have avenged the murder of their comrade; but their horses and mules
were crippled, the country was vast and strange, they must push onward
to safety. So they headed, as before, into the northward. Amidst the
general mutterings of anger and bated revenge Kit Carson it was who
remarked, quietly:
“Wall, the Good Book says something about reaping whar we have sowed.
White men did the fust killing, when the Joe Walker party shot down
these hyar same Diggers, on the march across from the Salt Lake in
Thirty-three. Now thar’s war, an’ thar ever will be, an’ the white man
air to blame, but the Injun’ll suffer most.”
The country grew better, in appearance; cedars and pines flourished
upon the hills, birds were present, and before uplifted snowy mountains
of a loftier range. At the Vegas de Santa Clara, or the Meadows of
Santa Clara, near to the Virgin River, the company were in southwestern
Utah.
The Frémont and Carson company could delay only a day at the pleasant
Meadows. Soon after leaving the camping place they noted a moving cloud
of dust on the trail behind; out of the dust cloud evolved hurrying
figures――a little squad of horsemen.
“Whites!” pronounced Kit, at once. “Americans, too――an’ ride like
trappers.” And――“If that airn’t old Joe Walker, leading ’em, I’ll eat
him,” he added.
The pursuing squad, nine riders, and several pack-animals, drew on at
fast trot. The foremost was a horseman splendidly large of stature,
with plentiful gray whiskers covering cheeks and chin. He threw up his
hand in salute; Kit and the lieutenant answered in kind.
“Hello, Kit,” he called.
“Hello, Joe. Whar you bound?”
He had arrived, and pulled short.
“Jest looking for company. Saw your sign down the trail, an’ started on
to overtake ye.”
“Wall, you’ve done it,” commented Kit, coolly. Whereupon he introduced
to one another the lieutenant and Captain Joe Walker, mountain-man,
trapper, trader, guide.
The captain had started from Los Angeles with the annual main caravan
for Santa Fé. Seeing the trail of the Frémont and Carson company, with
eight men, Americans all, he boldly had set out, across the desert, to
catch the expedition. That was just like old Joe Walker, Kit Carson
afterwards declared. They had fought with the Diggers, killing two and
in turn receiving wounds among the horses; and here they were.
For such a fighter and adventurer Captain Joe Walker bore a singularly
mild, although determined visage, from which clear blue eyes peered
out, above the whiskers. Oliver was attracted by him at once, and was
glad when he heard him agree to guide the company across the mountains,
ahead. He had made a specialty of the Great Basin and the approaches
to it, and had traded much among the Utes, whose country bordered it
on the east of the Salt Lake. Therefore the region now toward the
northeast was familiar to him.
In central Utah the Old Spanish Trail turned short, and east and
southeast ran down for Santa Fé. This would be the direct route for
Taos and even for Bent’s Fort; but the lieutenant wished to visit
a lake called Utah Lake, near to the Salt Lake; thence cross the
mountains back of the Salt Lake and working over to the head of the
Arkansas River, follow it down to Bent’s Fort. The Californians Andrés
Fuentes and Pablo the boy decided to stay with the company, instead of
going direct to Santa Fé.
So from the turn of the Old Spanish Trail the course was still
northward, with the Wasatch Mountains (the same which skirted on the
east the Great Salt Lake) snowy at the right. They were greeted as
friends; good they looked to Kit Carson and the other mountain-men.
The Sevier River barred the way. In California a river, barring, had
been crossed by means of hides removed from freshly slaughtered cattle
and stretched upon sticks. The Frémont and Carson company now had no
cattle left; but undefeated, out of bundles of bulrushes they fashioned
sharp-pointed rafts.