NIGHT TRAVEL, FROM ARID WASTES TO LIMPID WATERS.
From the Sink of the Humboldt the little Darby party wished to
complete the trip by the Carson Route, thus separating from the
majority, but their supplies were exhausted and they had now but one
ox and one cow to draw their wagon. A suggestion, that those who could
spare articles of food should divide with the needy, was no sooner
made than acted upon. Sides of bacon, sacks of flour and other
substantials were piled into their little vehicle, and the owners of
the two oxen which had been loaned Darby simply said, "Take them
along; you need them more than we do." Danny, alias "Gravy" Worley,
being of that party, showed his delight, by sparkling eyes and
beaming fat face, when he saw the abundance of edibles turned over to
his people. Mr. Darby shed genuine tears of gratitude, as we bade them
good-bye and drove away by another route.
The combination train was further divided, each party shaping its
farther course according to the location of its final stop. The
Drennans took the Carson Route, the Maxwell train proceeding by the
more northerly, Truckee, trail. The associations of the plains, closer
cemented by the sharing of many hardships and some pleasures, had
created feelings almost equal to kinship, more binding than those of
many a life-long neighborhood relation. So there were deep regrets at
parting.
On leaving the Sink of the Humboldt there was before us a wholly
desert section, forty miles wide. The course led southwesterly, over
flat, barren lands, with a line of low hills, absolutely devoid of
vegetation, on our right. This was known to be one of the hard drives
of our long journey; but hearsay knowledge was also to the effect
that, at its farther border, we would reach the Truckee River, and
soon thereafter ascend the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The prospect of
seeing again a river of _pure_ water, and fresh, green trees, had a
buoyant effect on our lagging hopes; and these were further stimulated
by the information that not long after entering these forest shades we
would cross the State line into California.
While crossing the forty miles of desert, the sun-baked silt, at the
beginning, and later the deep, dry sand, made heavy going. To avoid
the almost intolerable heat of day as much as possible, and it being
known that water was not obtainable, during this much-dreaded bit of
travel, we deferred the start until mid-afternoon, and traveled all
night.
The impressions of that night ride were most extraordinary. As the
sun sank, and twilight shaded into night, the atmosphere was filled
with a hazy dimness; not merely fog, nor smoke, nor yet a pall of
suspended dust, but rather what one might expect in a blending of
those three. Only a tinge of moonlight from above softened the dull
hue. It was not darkness as night usually is dark. It was an
impenetrable, opaque narrowing of the horizon, and closing in of the
heavens above us; which, as we advanced, constantly shifted its
boundary, retaining us still in the center of the great amphitheater
of half-night. We could see one another, but beyond or above the
encompassing veil all was mystery, even greater mystery than mere
darkness. No moon nor stars visible; nothing visible but just part of
ourselves, and ours.
As the night merged into morning, the sunlight gradually dispelled the
mantle of gloom from our immediate presence; but still we could not
see out. As if inclosed in a great moving pavilion, on we went,
guided only by the tracks of those who had gone before.
In the after part of the night the loose cattle, having been for two
nights and a day without water, and instinctively expecting an
opportunity to drink, quickened their pace, passing the wagons; the
stronger ones outgoing the weaker, till the drove was strung out two
or three miles in length along the sandy trail.
Some of the wise-heads in the company were fearful that the cattle, on
reaching the Truckee River, would drink too much. They detailed Luke
Kidd and me to ride on our mules ahead of the foremost of the stock,
and on reaching the river, permit none of the animals to drink more
than a little water at a time.
We went ahead during all that long morning, following what was surely,
to us, the longest night that ever happened, before or since. Most of
the other members of our party were in the wagons, and they, except
the drivers, slept soundly; rocked gently, very gently, by the slow
grinding of the wheels in the soft, deep sand. But Luke and I, on our
little mules, must keep awake, and alert as possible, in readiness to
hold back the cattle from taking too much water.
From midnight to daybreak seemed a period amounting to entire days and
nights; from dawn till sunrise, an epoch; and from sunrise to the time
of reaching the river, as a period that would have no end.
As the sun finally rose behind us, the faintest adumbration of the
nearest ridges of the Sierras was discerned, in a dim, blue scroll
across the western horizon, far ahead--how far it was useless to
guess; and later, patches of snow about the peaks.
The minutes were as hours; and their passing tantalized us: noting how
the dim view grew so very slowly into hazy outlines of mountains, and
finally of tree-tops.
On we labored, overcoming distance inch by inch; nodding in our
saddles; occasionally dismounting, to shake off the almost
overpowering grasp of sleep.
Half awake, we dreamed of water, green trees, and fragrant flowers.
Rising hope, anon, took the place of long-deferred fruition, and we
forgot for a moment how hard the pull was; till, with returning
consciousness of thirst and painful drowsiness, we saw the landscape
ahead presented still another, and another line of sand-dunes yet to
be overcome.
Luke and I reached the Truckee at nine o'clock in the forenoon, just
ahead of the vanguard of cattle, and about three miles in advance of
the foremost wagon.
We tried to regulate the cattle's consumption of water, but did not
prevent their drinking all they could hold. Ten men, on ten mules,
could not have stopped one cow from plunging into that river, once
she got sight of it, and remaining as long as she desired. We could
not even prevent the mules we rode from rushing into it--that cold,
rippling Truckee. Yet our elders had sent us two boys to hold back a
hundred cattle, and make them drink in installments--in homeopathic
doses, for their stomachs' sake.
They dashed into the stream _en masse_; and seeing the futility of
interfering, we gladly joined the cattle, in the first good, long,
cool swallow of clear, clean water, within a period of six weeks.
Our little mules did not stop till they reached the middle of the
river, and stuck their heads, ears and all, under the water. Luke's
diminutive, snuff-colored beast was so overcome by the sight and feel
of water that she lay down in it, with him astride, giving herself and
her master the first real bath since the time that she did the same
thing, in the Platte River, some three months previously.
To us, the long-time sun-dried, thirsty emigrants; covered from head
to foot with dust from the Black Hills, overlaid with alkali powder
from the Humboldt, veneered with ashes of the desert; all ingrained by
weeks of dermatic absorption, rubbed in by the wear of travel,
polished by the friction of the wind--to us said the Truckee, flowing
a hundred feet wide, transparent, deep, cool; rattling and singing and
splashing over the rocks; and the sparkle of its crystal purity, the
music of its flow and the joy of its song, repeated, "Come and take a
drink."
We filled our canteens and went back to meet the others. We found them
in a line three miles long; and it was well into the afternoon when
the last wagon reached the river.
The train crossed to the farther shore, into the grateful shade of the
pine forest and there made camp.
What an enchanting spectacle was that scene of wooded hills, with its
varying lights and shades, all about us! From as far as we could see,
up the heights and down to the river bank, where their roots were
washed in the cool water, the great trees grew.
We were still within the confines of Nevada, but two men were there
with a wagon-load of fresh garden stuff, brought over from the
foothills of California to sell to the emigrants: potatoes, at fifty
cents a pound, pickles, eight dollars a keg, and so on. We bought, and
feasted.
The camp that night by the Truckee River was the happiest of all. We
had reached a place where green things grew in limitless profusion,
where water flowed pure and free; and we were out of the desert and
beyond the reach of the savage Redman.