most pitiable objects in the whole range of natural history. Old
age has probably been decided in the economy of buffalo life as the
unpardonable sin. Abandoned to his fate, he may be discovered in his
dreary isolation, near some stream or lake, where it does not tax him
too severely to find good grass; for he is now feeble, and exertion
an impossibility. In this new stage of his existence he seems to have
completely lost his courage. Frightened at his own shadow, or the
rustling of a leaf, he is the very incarnation of nervousness and
suspicion. Gregarious in his habits from birth, solitude, foreign to
his whole nature, has changed him into a new creature; and his inherent
terror of the most trivial things is intensified to such a degree
that if a man were compelled to undergo such constant alarm, it would
probably drive him insane in less than a week. Nobody ever saw one of
these miserable and forlorn creatures dying a natural death, or even
heard of such an occurrence. The cowardly coyote and the gray wolf
had already marked him for their own; and they rarely missed their
calculations.
Rising suddenly to the top of a divide with a party of friends in 1866,
we saw standing below us in the valley an old buffalo bull, the very
picture of despair. Surrounding him were seven gray wolves in the
act of challenging him to mortal combat. The poor beast, undoubtedly
realizing the hopelessness of his situation, had determined to die
game. His great shaggy head, filled with burrs, was lowered to the
ground as he confronted his would-be executioners; his tongue, black
and parched, lolled out of his mouth, and he gave utterance at
intervals to a suppressed roar.
The wolves were sitting on their haunches in a semicircle immediately
in front of the tortured beast, and every time that the fear-stricken
buffalo gave vent to his hoarsely modulated groan, the wolves howled in
concert in most mournful cadence.
After contemplating his antagonists for a few moments, the bull made a
dash at the nearest wolf, tumbling him howling over the silent prairie;
but while this diversion was going on in front, the remainder of the
pack started for his hind legs to hamstring him. Upon this the poor
beast turned to the point of attack, only to receive a repetition of it
in the same vulnerable place by the wolves, who had as quickly turned
also and fastened themselves on his heels again. His hind quarters
now streamed with blood, and he began to show signs of great physical
weakness. He did not dare to lie down; that would have been instantly
fatal. By this time he had killed three of the wolves, or so maimed
them that they were entirely out of the fight.
At this juncture the suffering animal was mercifully shot, and the
wolves allowed to batten on his thin and tough carcass.
[Illustration]
JUDGE LYNCH'S COURT AT WHOOPING HOLLOW.
[Illustration]
Whooping Hollow is the uneuphonious name of a mining camp in the very
heart of the Taos Range--or rather, _was_, for it has been expunged
from the map these twenty-five years, and but few of the present
generation in New Mexico are aware that such a place ever existed. It
was almost inaccessible, so awfully abrupt and broken were the bare
granite ridges surrounding it, out of which the circumscribed valley
in which the town lay seemed to have been literally scooped when
the rocks were plastic--Titanic hands holding the scraper, and the
lightning the propelling power. How the place received its strange
appellation was a mystery even to the majority of the miners who worked
there for nearly five years with picks, shovels, long-toms, sluices,
and other appliances for extracting the ore from the refractory rock.
The quantity of the precious metals shipped during that period made
the camp famous, and resulted in building up a town of rude shanties
and dugouts which at the height of its prosperity numbered over twelve
hundred souls. But you cannot find Whooping Hollow on any modern map,
for it played out in less than six years from the date of the discovery
of gold there; though several fortunes were mined in that time, and
made by traffic the specialty of which was bad whisky.
There was a legend current in the early days of the valley's occupancy,
that was honestly believed in, which affirmed that the first party
of prospectors, consisting of four or five men, all Tennesseeans,
who entered the great cañon in their search, were rewarded well for
their pains, finding plenty of water, game, fuel, together with other
necessaries in the prosecution of their vocation--a beautiful place
for their camp, lots of silver, and gold in paying quantities--were
scared out of the gulch (to which they never returned) by an unearthly
screeching, seemingly emanating from a human throat. Its ghostly owner,
they declared, visited their camp every night about 11 o'clock, and on
the top of a timbered knoll, where they could plainly see it as the
moonlight sifted through the scattered piñons and dwarfed cedars, took
its stand, setting up its blood-curdling cries, which it continued
with short intervals of cessation, until daybreak. Those men, it was
alleged, were a very ignorant and superstitious set, who, after three
nights of their weird experience, could bear it no longer, and were
absolutely driven away through fright.
Of course they told others of their rich strike, not forgetting to
mention the "hant" of the place, as they called it; but these others,
old mountaineers, not fearing any disturbance from the moonlight
specter, went there, established their camp--to which hundreds soon
flocked--calling it Whooping Hollow, in derision of the tale told by
the alarmed Tennesseeans; which name it retained during its whole
existence, and was known and recognized by that as a postoffice on the
mail records in Washington.
In all probability what the men really heard was the mottled or
American screech-owl, which makes a plaintive noise, and a peculiar
sound during part of its mournful notes, like the chattering of teeth,
keeping up its alternating whooping and moaning all night. It loves to
perch on some blasted tree in the moonlight, and the disembodied form
seen by the superstitious miners must have been a shattered and denuded
piñon, on which the nocturnal bird sat, that, escaping their vision in
the daytime, was exaggerated by their frightened eyes at night into the
"hant" of the place!--But this is not a ghost story, and the reader
will pardon the digression.
The region in which Whooping Hollow was situated is the roughest, and,
to employ a mining phrase, the "lumpiest" portion of the whole Taos
range. It is a deep gulch in the strictest interpretation of the word,
formed by two lofty divides, whose crests tower skyward from their
bases more than 3,000 feet, which themselves are over 5,000 feet above
the Atlantic's level, and the distance across the narrow valley at its
widest part scarcely three-quarters of a mile. The angle of the slope
of the two opposing mountains is a little less than 35 degrees, making
their sides, as maybe inferred, very precipitous.
The town's era of prosperity was long before the days of railroads in
that portion of the continent, and such feats of engineering as have
been accomplished since in the way of "hog-backs," loops and tunnels
were not dreamed of as among the possibilities of mountain travel. Nor
was there even a wagon-road to Whooping Hollow. Such a thing would
have been regarded equally as difficult and expensive as the wonderful
achievement of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé in climbing the Raton
Range a dozen years later. Everything was "packed" into the place on
muleback, at a minimum cost of twenty-five cents a pound, whether the
simplest necessaries of life or a sawmill, and the zig-zag trail the
sure-footed beasts were compelled to travel up and down the fearful
slopes of the great divides to get in and out of the rocky streets of
the narrow town, made one dizzy to look at.
The rude collection of shanties, through courtesy called the town of
Whooping Hollow, was built on one side of a little creek which ran at
a fearful rate in the bottom of the gulch, whose waters, boiling and
foaming, like all mountain streams, rushed over and around the immense
bowlders with which its narrow bed was choked; while on the opposite
side, immediately facing the principal street, extending for miles
both ways, on the hill, the mining claims were located. The houses
were in most instances mere shells, constructed of rough slabs; while
a few were of hewn logs, presenting a relatively neat appearance. The
roofs of all, however, were flat, and covered with earth; they rose
one above the other like a flight of stairs, so that one could easily
step out of his door upon the top of his neighbor's dwelling below,
so precipitous was the side of the mountain on which the place was of
necessity laid out. The town consisted of four streets--one devoted
entirely to business, the other three to residences only. There were
five stores, whose stock was of that character known throughout the
West and in the mountains as "general." That is, their proprietors
almost literally kept everything, from a toothpick to a steam engine,
or from a shoestring to a silk dress. The place boasted also of twelve
banks--of deposit only--faro and monte; for the unfortunate individual
who once laid his money on the green-cloth tables of these institutions
rarely saw any of it again: it was permanently invested! Of saloons,
too, Whooping Hollow had its full complement--I think there were thirty
at one time; and their owners were not obliged to contribute anything
to the support of the town, for as to municipal expenses, there were
none. Yet the discipline of the place was fair, to say the least:
the ratio of violent deaths to the number of inhabitants was not
nearly as great as in any of the Eastern cities; and as to thieving or
burglary, such crimes were as rare as a church service--which Whooping
Hollow never had during the whole period of its existence. Of course
such a unique condition of morality is easily accounted for. "Judge
Lynch's" court was the only tribunal for the trial of offenses against
the peace and dignity of the town, and from its decisions there was
no appeal. Besides, society there was so constituted that it could
condone a murder if there existed the slightest shadow of extenuating
circumstances, but it would never forgive the unlawful appropriation
of another's goods, particularly of horses; horse-stealing being the
unpardonable sin, as it is generally on the frontier, the prompt remedy
for which was "a short shrift and a long rope."
Notwithstanding the fact that perhaps there were hundreds of men in
Whooping Hollow to whose ears the shrill whistle of a bullet would
sound sweeter than the soft notes of a flute, still their general
good-nature, when sober, and principle of "honor among thieves," kept
them within bounds. Occasionally--very naturally, too--there were
desperate fights over the gambling-tables in the hells which abounded
in Whooping Hollow, and frequently an outrageously obstreperous
individual, full of "bug-juice," as the vile whisky dispensed in
the saloons was called, would get a hole drilled into him by a No.
44 revolver-ball, or his vitals carved with an eleven-inch bowie.
But arrests were rarely made in quarrels of that character, because
extenuating circumstances generally existed. Often, under the excellent
care of the skillful doctor--a former army surgeon, who had established
himself there--the belligerents would recover from their fearful
encounter, but oftener took up their last "claim" of six-feet-by-two in
"The Bone Orchard," as the cemetery on the timbered knoll (where it was
alleged the "hant" was originally seen) had been dubbed by the citizens
of Whooping Hollow.
The average miner (and the miners' claims radiated from the place in
all directions at varying distances, some as far as thirty miles)
would come into town once a week at least, generally Sunday, and if he
had been fortunate in his diggings would make a break for the first
gaming-table in his way. If he by any chance won he would "make the
rounds," which in local parlance meant stopping at every saloon to
treat the crowd of thirsty bummers always present on such occasions,
and sometimes provoking a quarrel with the first man who got in his
way. But if losing, the rule generally, he went drunk and sulky back to
his claim, consoling himself with the hope of better luck next time.
And so the lives of the majority were passed. Not a few died "with
their boots on" in some drunken row with their friends, to whom they
had offered a real or fancied insult.
As in all mining-camps at the period of Whooping Hollow's boom, a most
heterogeneous crowd composed its residents and transient occupiers.
In its rough but busy streets you met all shades and nationalities.
The tall, plodding Yankee, fresh from the hills of New England, green
as a gourd, but with sufficient gall to extricate himself from any
little difficulty he might stumble into; the active, restless Texan;
the jauntily dressed commercial traveler, with his samples of bad
whisky and worse cigars; the swarthy Mexican, with his broad sombrero,
scarlet sash, and irrepressible _cigarito_; that darker specimen of the
_genus homo_, the negro; and, last of all, the "heathen Chinee." Nearly
every State had its dozens of representatives in the motley group of
individuals who had come to seek their fortunes in this new El Dorado.
It was a grand place to study character; to learn how all the finer
attributes of man may be completely crushed out of his nature by years
of adversity, and how, under the same circumstances in others, all that
is noble and pure predominates, no matter how hellish or pestilential,
morally, may have been their surroundings.
The principal store of the town was owned and conducted by Jemuel
Knaggs, a man of reputable character, an old plainsman and mountaineer,
full of enterprise and grit, the acknowledged "leading citizen" of
Whooping Hollow. In every community, whether the most enlightened or
barbarous, there is always to be found some individual who, by his
force of character and other inherent attributes, becomes foremost
in all that concerns the welfare and prosperity of the people who
compose it, and this was the rôle that Jemuel Knaggs played in the
rough mining-camp of Whooping Hollow. He was a veteran miner, too,
of California in '49; Fraser river, in British Columbia, in '58; and
Pike's Peak in '59. But having amassed several thousand dollars during
his erratic wanderings, in 1859 he abandoned the pick and shovel for
the more pleasant occupation of keeping a general miners' store, whose
necessities none knew better than he. So he opened up in Whooping
Hollow in the days of its incipiency. He was a man about fifty years
old, rather slender than otherwise, but there was something in his air
and features which distinguished him from common men. The expression
of his countenance was keen and daring; his forehead was high, and his
lips thin and compressed, indicating great determination of will. One
would not have hesitated to confide in his honor or courage, but would
have been extremely reluctant to provoke his hostility. He always wore
a dark-blue navy shirt, to the collar of which was attached a curious
button. Around his waist was tightly buckled a broad leather belt, in
which a formidable looking bowie-knife was stuck; to be used, as is
usual with all frontiersmen, for various purposes indifferently--to
kill a man, cut food, pick his teeth, or for whittling when he had
nothing else to do.
Matters progressed very smoothly in Whooping Hollow for two or three
years, under the watchful care of Knaggs and a few others of like
sterling character, who will be hurriedly described as they appear in
this sketch. But at the end of that period a pall suddenly fell on
the place. Men would leave for a visit to some neighboring camp or
on a hunting expedition, and never be heard of again. Sometimes it
would be one of the best citizens who would disappear all at once; the
number of instances of this character in one year aggregating twenty.
At last the whole town became aroused, and suspicions of foul play in
the matter entered their heretofore apparently too lethargic brains. No
one felt safe, and when, to "cap the climax" as it were, Jemuel Knaggs
was declared "missing," an investigation was immediately but secretly
instituted.
It then developed that with one or two exceptions all of those who
had disappeared had left Whooping Hollow for Sandy Bar, the nearest
mining-camp, sixty miles distant, and to which there was only one
possible trail over the divide. That the parties had been murdered
was now conceded; but upon whom could suspicion rest? and where on
the lonely route were the damnable deeds committed? These were the
questions discussed one evening by half a dozen prominent men of
Whooping Hollow, who had secretly met in a room about a week after
Jemuel Knaggs failed to return at the appointed time. He was last seen
on the day of his departure from town by some reputable miners, who
had met and conversed with him on the trail to Sandy Bar, not more
than twelve miles from his home. He had never arrived at Sandy Bar,
however; that fact was ascertained to a certainty through diligent
inquiry there. It was only a small camp of less than three hundred
people, and he was as well known there as in Whooping Hollow.
About half-way between Whooping Hollow and Sandy Bar there was a
narrow, rocky valley, known as Willow Springs Gulch; abandoned long
ago as a mining region, the ore in that vicinity having consisted of
a series of small "pockets" only, which were naturally exhausted in
less than six months from the date of their discovery, and that was
more than two years before operations had begun in Whooping Hollow.
But the place was still famous for its pure water, which gushed out of
the indurated wall of a small cañon in a stream as large as a man's
arm--clear, cold and sparkling; the best water to be found in the
whole sixty miles' ride. The entrance to the rocky cañon was almost
concealed by a dense growth of mountain willows; hence the name. But
the beautiful spring was the only redeeming feature in the otherwise
barren and desolate landscape. Near this lonely spot stood a small
adobe cabin, or rather hut, the only habitation anywhere within twenty
miles of the dreary place. Its sole occupant was a miner, ostensibly,
who pretended to own a claim near Sandy Bar, but it was alleged that
no one ever saw him work it; yet he always apparently had sufficient
money to supply his wants, ever paying gold for his purchases. He
was a tall, angular, villainous-looking specimen of humanity; rough,
illiterate, dialectic in his talk, but possessing the physique of a
giant, as courageous as a she-grizzly with cubs, a dead shot with the
revolver, and withal believed by every one to be a desperado in the
most rigid acceptation of the term. Viewed superficially--for nobody at
Whooping Hollow or Sandy Bar knew anything about his antecedents--he
was apparently without one redeeming quality, except that he was kind
to his dog, a mangy, spotted, wicked-looking yellow cur, with only one
eye, and tailless--fit companion for such a surly-disposed master. This
strangely mysterious being, with whom no one had any more intercourse
than was absolutely necessary, and that confined to the limited
conversation required when he entered stores to make purchases, lived
a supremely isolated sort of an existence, for he was as carefully
avoided by every one as were the rattlesnakes that infested the rocky
arroyos of the bald bleak hills where his hut was located. Upon him,
then, black suspicion naturally at once fell--so prone is human nature
to be guided by visible forms; though there was not an inkling of
proof, either circumstantial or direct, upon which to base this man's
guilt.
Fortunately, they who were quietly investigating the cause of the
disappearance of Jemuel Knaggs were men of excellent judgment; cool,
calm and deliberate in their proceedings, but terribly in earnest. They
had received their education in the great "school of the world": they
knew that suspicions were not facts; that appearances are too often
deceiving; and they were nonplussed because convincing proof was not
forthcoming to convict the only man upon whom a shadow of probable
guilt could fall.
This strange creature, about whom nobody knew anything, was called,
whenever reference to him became necessary (often now, for he was in
everyone's thought a murderer), "Willow Gulch Jack," because his real
name was not ever known--adopting the Indian's method of nomenclature
and associating him with his locality. It may readily be inferred that
it was only his villainous aspect and isolated life that brought this
wholesale condemnation upon him, for he had never been guilty of any
disreputable act that the people could discover, and now they left no
stone unturned to find something against him; but they avoided and
suspected him as a sheep-raiser does a strange cur in his neighborhood.
Consequently a system of espionage was inaugurated on his movements,
but nothing, as yet, had been discovered to cast a shadow on his
every-day life. He knew that he was suspected and watched; so, for
some special reason which had not yet been made clear to the people of
Whooping Hollow, he was now almost constantly absent from home, passing
his time on the trail between his cabin and the top of the divide
above the town, always accompanied by the one-eyed, tailless dog, his
constant companion. His enemies were aware of his perambulations, but
could not divine the cause, and the mystery connected with his isolated
life seemed to them more impenetrable than ever. Of course they did
not hound his every footstep, because, as they reasoned, that would
give him no opportunity to commit himself; they merely adopted such
precautionary measures as would prevent his escape from the country,
and that would permit them to arrest him at any time they wanted to if
he attempted to leave, or whenever they had gathered sufficient proof
to convict him, which as yet seemed as remote as ever--flattering
themselves all the while that he was unconscious of their intentions.
One day, about two weeks after the investigation of the cause of the
disappearance of Jemuel Knaggs had been fairly inaugurated, this Willow
Gulch Jack, as I shall have to call him in the absence of the knowledge
of his real name, rode quietly into Whooping Hollow, dismounted, tied
his mule to a stump in front of Tom Bradford's log cabin, walked up to
the door, gave it a heavy kick, and waited until it was opened--his
cur, at a word from his master, lying down close to the mule.
Tom Bradford was a veteran miner, one of the best citizens Whooping
Hollow possessed, whose opinions on important matters were generally
regarded as conclusive--such faith the curiously assorted people of
the town placed in his excellent judgment, which fact Jack was fully
aware of. Bradford himself came out on the porch in response to Jack's
tremendous knock, but when he saw who his visitor was, a shade of
evident displeasure passed over his countenance--for he too, although
he knew that not a scintilla of proof had been forthcoming after all
these days of investigation, believed in this man's guilt. Tom Bradford
regarded Jack intently for a moment, as if wondering what to say or
do, so astonished was he at his presence; but Jack broke the painful
silence in a few words:
"I say, Tom Bradford," (nobody was "mistered" out there in those days,)
"I hev kim ter talk ter ye. I knows this hyar's onexpected, but I don't
keer, an' w'at I hev ter tell I wants ter tell ye whar no one kin har
we-uns. Hev yer sich a place whar we-uns kin converse ondisturbed?"