THE OVERLAND IMMIGRANTS
The overland immigrants never ceased to interest us. The illness,
destitution, and suffering that obtained among these people has never
been adequately depicted. For one outfit with healthy looking members
and adequate cattle there were dozens conducted by hollow-eyed, gaunt
men, drawn by few weak animals. Women trudged wearily, carrying
children. And the tales they brought were terrible. They told us of
thousands they had left behind in the great desert of the Humboldt Sink,
fighting starvation, disease, and the loss of cattle. Women who had lost
their husbands from the deadly cholera were staggering on without food
or water, leading their children. The trail was lined with dead mules
and cattle. Some said that five thousand had perished on the plains from
cholera alone. In the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere, were
the death camps, the wagons drawn in the usual circle, the dead animals
tainting the air, every living human being crippled from scurvy and
other diseases. There was no fodder for the cattle, and one man told us
that he estimated, soberly, that three fourths of the draught animals on
the plains must die.
"And then where will their owners be?"
The Indians were hostile and thieving. Most of the ample provision that
had been laid in had to be thrown away to lighten the loads for the
enfeebled animals. Such immigrants as got through often arrived in an
impoverished condition. Many of these on the route were reduced by
starvation to living on the putrefied flesh of the dead animals along
the road. This occasioned more sickness. The desert seemed interminable.
At nightfall the struggling trains lay down exhausted with only the
assurance of another scorching, burning day to follow. And when at last
a few reached the Humboldt River, they found it almost impossible to
ford--and the feed on the other side. In the distance showed the high
forbidding ramparts of the Sierra Nevadas. A man named Delano told us
that five men drowned themselves in the Humboldt River in one day out of
sheer discouragement. Another man said he had saved the lives of his
oxen by giving some Indians fifteen dollars to swim the river and float
some grass across to him. The water of the Humboldt had a bad effect on
horses, and great numbers died. The Indians stole others. The animals
that remained were weak. The destruction of property was immense, for
everything that could be spared was thrown away in order to lighten the
loads. The road was lined with abandoned wagons, stoves, mining
implements, clothes.
We were told these things over and over, heavily, in little snatches, by
men too wearied and discouraged and beaten even to rejoice that they had
come through alive. They were not interested in telling us, but they
told, as though their minds were so full that they could not help it. I
remember one evening when we were feeding at our camp the members of one
of these trains, a charity every miner proffered nearly every day of the
week. The party consisted of one wagon, a half dozen gaunt, dull-eyed
oxen, two men, and a crushed-looking, tragic young woman. One of the men
had in a crude way the gift of words.
He told of the crowds of people awaiting the new grass at Independence
in Missouri, of the making up of the parties, the election of officers
for the trip, the discussion of routes, the visiting, the campfires, the
boundless hope.
"There were near twenty thousand people waiting for the grass," said our
friend; a statement we thought exaggerated, but one which I have
subsequently found to be not far from the truth.
By the middle of May the trail from the Missouri River to Fort Laramie
was occupied by a continuous line of wagons.
"That was fine travelling," said the immigrant in the detached way of
one who speaks of dead history. "There was grass and water; and the
wagon seemed like a little house at night. Everybody was jolly. It
didn't last long."
After Fort Laramie there were three hundred miles of plains, with little
grass and less water.
"We thought that was a desert!" exclaimed the immigrant bitterly. "My
God! Quite a lot turned back at Laramie. They were scared by the cholera
that broke out, scared by the stories of the desert, scared by the
Indians. They went back. I suppose they're well and hearty--and kicking
themselves every gold report that goes back east."
The bright anticipations, the joy of the life, the romance of the
journey all faded before the grim reality. The monotony of the plains,
the barrenness of the desert, the toil of the mountains, the terrible
heat, the dust, the rains, the sickness, the tragedy of deaths had
flattened all buoyancy, and left in its stead only a sullen, dogged
determination.
"There was lots of quarrelling, of course," said our narrator.
"Everybody was on edge. There were fights, that we had to settle
somehow, and bad feeling."
They had several minor skirmishes with Indians, lost from their party by
disease, suffered considerable hardships and infinite toil.
"We thought we'd had a hard time," said our friend wonderingly. "Lord!"
At the very start of the journey they had begun to realize that they
were overloaded, and had commenced to throw away superfluous goods.
Several units of the party had even to abandon some of their wagons.
"We chucked everything we thought we could get along without. I know we
spent all one day frying out bacon to get the grease before we threw it
away. We used the grease for our axles."
They reached the head of the Humboldt. Until this point they had kept
together, but now demoralization began. They had been told at Salt Lake
City that they had but four hundred miles to go to Sacramento. Now they
discovered that at the Humboldt they had still more than that distance
to travel; and that before them lay the worst desert of all.
"Mind you," said our friend, "we had been travelling desperately. Our
cattle had died one by one; and we had doubled up with our teams. We had
starved for water until our beasts were ready to drop and our own
tongues had swollen in our mouths, and were scared--_scared_, I
tell you--scared!"
He moistened his lips slowly, and went on. "Sometimes we took two or
three hours to go a mile, relaying back and forth. We were down to a
fine point. It wasn't a question of keeping our property any more; it
was a case of saving our lives. We'd abandoned a good half of our wagons
already. When we got to the Humboldt and learned from a mountain man
going the other way that the great desert was still before us, and when
we had made a day or two's journey down the river toward the Sink, I
tell you we lost our nerve--and our sense." He ruminated a few moments
in silence. "My God! man!" he cried. "That trail! From about halfway
down the river the carcasses of horses and oxen were so thick that I
believe if they'd been laid in the road instead of alongside you could
have walked the whole way without setting foot to ground!"
And then the river disappeared underground, and they had to face the
crossing of the Sink itself.
"That was a real desert," the immigrant told us sombrely. "There were
long white fields of alkali and drifts of ashes across them so soft that
the cattle sank way to their bellies. They moaned and bellowed! Lord,
how they moaned! And the dust rose up so thick you couldn't breathe, and
the sun beat down so fierce you felt it like something heavy on your
head. And how the place stunk with the dead beasts!"
The party's organization broke. The march became a rout. Everybody
pushed on with what strength he had. No man, woman, or child could ride;
the wagons were emptied of everything but the barest necessities. At
every stop some animal fell in the traces, and was cut out of the yoke.
When a wagon came to a stop, it was abandoned, the animals detached and
driven forward.
Those who were still afoot were constantly besought by those who had
been forced to a standstill.
"I saw one old man, his wife and his daughter, all walking along on
foot," said the immigrant bitterly. "They were half knee deep in alkali,
the sun was broiling hot, they had absolutely nothing. We couldn't help
them. What earthly chance had they? I saw a wagon stalled, the animals
lying dead in their yokes, all except one old ox. A woman and three
children sat inside the wagon. She called to me that they hadn't had
anything to eat for three days, and begged me to take the children. I
couldn't. I could have stopped and died there with her, but I couldn't
put another pound on my wagon and hope to get through. We were all
walking alongside; even Sue, here."
The woman raised her tragic face.
"We left our baby there," she said; and stared back again into the coals
of the fire.
"We made it," resumed the immigrant. "We got to the Truckee River
somehow, and we rested there three days. I don't know what became of the
rest of our train; dead perhaps."
We told him of the immigrant register or bulletin board at Morton's.
"I must look that over," said he. "I don't know how long it took us to
cross the mountains. Those roads are terrible; and our cattle were weak.
We were pretty near out of grub too. Most of the people have no food at
all. Well, here we are! But there are thousands back of us. What are
they going to do? And when the mountains fill with snow----"
After the trio, well fed for the first time in months, had turned in, we
sat talking about our fire. We were considerably subdued and sobered;
for this was the first coherent account we had heard at first hand. Two
things impressed us--the tragedy, the futility. The former aspect hit us
all; the latter struck strongly at Old and Cal. Those youngsters, wise
in the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over the
incompetence of it all.
"But thar ain't no manner of _use_ in it!" cried Old. "They are
just bullin' at it plumb regardless! They ain't handled their cattle
right! They ain't picked their route right--why, the old Mormon trail
down by the Carson Sink is better'n that death-trap across the Humboldt.
And cut-offs! What license they all got chasin' every fool cut-off
reported in? Most of 'em is all right fer pack-trains and all wrong fer
wagons! Oh, Lord!"
"They don't know," said I, "poor devils, they don't know. They were
raised on farms and in the cities."
Johnny had said nothing. His handsome face looked very sombre in the
firelight.
"Jim," said he, "we're due for a trip to-night; but I want you to
promise me one thing--just keep these people here, and feed them up
until we get back. Tell them I've got a job for them. Will you do it?"
I tried to pump Johnny as to his intentions, but could get nothing out
of him; and so promised blindly. About two o'clock I was roused from my
sleep by a soft moving about. Thrusting my head from the tent I made out
the dim figures of our horsemen, mounted, and moving quietly away down
the trail.