Through the country we have thus briefly described, Carson and his men
had trapped taking some small game, intending to return late in the
season when the cold of this high altitude, with the sun low, was
becoming terribly severe, while the grass was dead, and the birds of
passage had all departed. Their prospects were cheerless and
unpromising, nor were they at all improved after they left the Humboldt;
for their route lay through an artemisia desert, varied only by an
occasional little valley, where springs of water in the early season had
induced the growth of grass.
On reaching Goose Creek, they found it frozen, so that there was no
possibility of finding even roots, to satisfy their hunger. Though
to-day this is the trail of California emigration, with plenty of grass,
for a great portion of the way, in its season; now all was desolate,
and inured as they were to hardship, Carson's men had never before
suffered so much from hunger, nor did their animals fare much better.
Capt. McCoy had taken with him all not needed by Carson's party, because
he could give them food, and it was fortunate for them he had adopted
this course.
The magnificent mountain scenery on the route could scarcely excite
admiration or remark from this company of hungry, toil-worn men; even
that unique exhibition of nature's improvised ideality, done in
stone--pyramid circle--with its pagodas, temples, obelisks, and altars,
within a curiously wrought rock wall, they only wished were the _adobe_
walls and houses of Fort Hall. However, nothing daunted by the dreary
prospect before them, they here bled their horses, and drank the
precious draught, well knowing they were taking the wind from the sails
upon which they must rely to waft them into port, if they ever reached
it.
The next day, they were meditating the slaughter of one of their horses,
when a party of Snake Indians fortunately came in sight. They had been
out on the war trail, and returning, had little food, but Carson managed
to purchase a fat horse, which they killed at once, and thus managed to
live luxuriously till they reached the fort, able now to walk and give
the horses the advantage of their diet.
Epicureans of civilization, when the squeamishness of an appetite,
perverted by too delicate fare, is invited to such a repast, may rest
assured that they know not the satisfaction such fare afforded to Kit
Carson and his party. Horse beef was sweeter food to these starving men,
than epicures had ever tasted.
After recruiting for a few days at the fort, and learning that there
were large herds of the game, which they gloried most in hunting, the
buffalo, near by, Carson and his party started for the stream on which
they could be found, and were not long in discovering a large herd of
fine fat buffalo. Stretching lines on which to hang the strips, they
killed, and dressed, and cut; and soon had dried all the meat their
animals could carry, when they returned to the fort.
Three days before reaching the fort, a party of Blackfeet Indians were
again upon their trail, and watching for their return.
On the third morning after their arrival, just as day dawned, two of the
Indians came past their camp to the _corral_ of the fort in which their
animals were confined, let down the bars and drove them all away; the
sentinel thinking the Indians were men of his party who had come to
relieve his watch, had gone into camp and was soundly sleeping before
the animals were missed. By this time the Indians had driven them many
miles away, and as a similar _ruse_ had been played upon the people at
the fort a few days before, by which all their animals were run off,
there was no possibility of giving chase.
Of course there was now no alternative but to wait the return of Capt.
McCoy from Walla Walla, which he did in about four weeks, bringing
animals enough to supply Carson and his party, besides, the men at the
fort, which had been obtained of the Kiowas, or Kaious Indians, in
Oregon. These Indians range between the Cascade and the Rocky Mountains,
in what is now the eastern portion of Washington and Oregon Territories,
living by the chase, and owning immense herds of horses, of which the
chief of this tribe owned ten thousand. In this same locality the Indian
bands reported by the parties of trappers in the American Fur Company,
had abundance of horses, with which they hunted deer, "ringing or
surrounding them, and running them down in a circle." But while
antelope, and elk, and deer, as well as beaver, were abundant, their
locality was not frequented by the buffalo, its ranges being further
toward the south and west.
Many suppose that buffalo never existed west of the Rocky Mountains; but
to attempt a correction of this impression with our readers, is no
longer necessary, as we have seen Carson killing them on the Salmon
River, on the Green River, and lastly, in the valley of a stream that
flows into the Salmon.
From Baird's General Repository, published in 1857, we quote,
"It will perhaps excite surprise that I include the buffalo in the fauna
of the Pacific States, as it is common to imagine that the buffalo has
always been confined to the Atlantic slopes, because it does not now
extend beyond the Rocky mountains. This is not true. They once abounded
on the Pacific."
This animal has not been found in California nor in Oregon, west of the
Cascade mountains, within the present generation of men, and the limit
of its ranges, narrowing every year, is now far this side of the Rocky
Mountains. Really a wild animal, incapable of being domesticated, as the
country is more and more traversed, he retires--is killed by thousands
by the hunter--and seems destined, as really as the Indian race, to
become extinct. Could either be induced to adopt the modes of life which
residence among the races of civilized men requires, their existence
might be prolonged perhaps for centuries, but there seems to be no care,
on the part of anybody who has the power, to preserve either the Indian
or the buffalo as a distinct race of man, and quadruped.
A writer who reports his trip from California in the summer of '57, by
Humboldt River and Fort Laramie, says:
"I watched for buffalo, expecting to see them in the valleys of the
streams, the head-waters of the Platte. But the hundred miles upon the
Sweet-water revealed no buffalo; upon the North Platte above Laramie
there were none, and on to Fort Kearney we looked in vain for this noble
game. If we had been a wagon party, and therefore confined to the road,
this would not have surprised us, as the immense emigration to
California first, to Salt Lake next, and the United States army
following, might be supposed to have driven them away. Then, too, Col.
Sumner had been through, and with a war party of three hundred mounted
riflemen, had followed the Cheyennes from Fort Laramie south to the
head-waters of the Arkansas. But we frequently left the road for days
together, in pursuit of game and the finer scenery of the immediate
river valley, or the hills as it happened.
"Only until three days after passing Fort Kearney, did the glad sight
greet us.
"In the broad bottom--ten miles at least between the hills that shut in
the river valley--they were scattered thickly and quietly grazing.
"In two hours after coming in sight of them, we pitched our camp upon
the river bank, and were soon prepared for the hunt. Though ten thousand
were in sight, we had not yet approached within half a mile of one, so
shy are they, moving off when we came in sight.
"The Platte was three quarters of a mile wide where we were camped, and
above and below us were numerous trails running from the river back into
the hills. These were like the cow-paths running to a spring in a New
England pasture. We camped about three o'clock, and soon after the
buffalo upon one side of the stream commenced moving towards the river
by these paths, and following each other close, to wade across it in a
continuous line by half a dozen paths in sight from where we were.
These moving lines of huge animals were continued till slumber closed
our eyes, at ten o'clock in the evening, and we knew not how much
longer.
"Having no fresh animals, and only one that had not made the distance
from the other side the Sierra Nevada within the last fifty days, we
could not hunt by the chase. Accordingly, with nicely loaded double
barrelled rifle, we crept through the under-brush that lined the bank
above us, and came near a line of buffalo crossing the river, and
choosing our opportunity, as the animal pauses from the brisk trot
before plunging into the stream, we were able to take good aim, and soon
had lodged a ball in the breast of a fine cow, who with a bound leaped
into the water, but was not able to proceed, nor needed the other shot
which we lodged in the brain, to float her down the stream.
"Calling help, we had her dressed directly, and the nicest steaks upon
the coals already kindled at the camp, and found them exceedingly
delicious--of course more so from the fact that we had taken it. Others
of the party came in without success; some had shot at a buffalo, others
had got a sight of one, and at two of the crossings the line was broken
temporarily by an unsuccessful attempt to kill an animal, but without
hurting him. Most of us had no practice with this kind of game, though
they had killed grouse, and some of them had shot antelope during our
journey. But now their guns would not go off, or they shot too high, or
could not get near enough. Just at dark, however, the old gentleman came
in for help. His French rifle--a gun of Revolutionary times--had done
execution, and a big bull was the prize he announced. We invited him to
our prepared repast, but 'no! he would sup to-night upon his own game,
he thanked us.' Of course he had the tongue from the animal he killed,
nor were the tender-loin and other choice bits bad eating, and taking
the tongue ourself, with the rest of the party, (of ten,) we managed to
carry away in the morning nearly all of the cow that we had not already
eaten.
"All night long the bellowing from the other side the river greeted our
tired senses. The situation was novel, and really in imagination, quite
terrific. Would they return across the river and stampede our animals?
We got a little sleep before midnight, but not much later.
"In the morning the buffalo were indeed returning in the style they
went, but as we rode on over their track, the lines were always broken,
and the animals scattered before we could approach them, and only once
did we come within pistol shot of any of them; nor did the rest of the
party do any better.
"Of course we might have done it had we made this our business; but we
were hastening from the El Dorado, after a four years' absence from our
homes. So much for our _extemporised_ buffalo hunting. In twenty-four
hours after striking them, we had passed the buffalo, and saw no more of
them. As we estimated it, we had seen in that time at least fifty
thousand; we had crossed the trail of fifteen lines of them crossing the
river after we left camp this morning."
We have quoted this to show the way in which travelers--emigrants
now--meet the buffalo. Sometimes a huge drove of them overrun an
emigrant party; but this seldom occurs, nor do parties often see more of
them than did the one we have just presented, though usually they see
them for a longer time. So much have the times changed since Carson was
a trapper.