I TAKE A PARTNER.
You are wrong. You have jumped at the conclusion when you had read the
above chapter heading that I have forgotten tender, winsome, blue-eyed,
fair-haired Lena Upton, and had wooed and won some buxom blooming
daughter of this cloud-rimmed Utopia of the West. You have already
pictured in your imagination the love-sick fancies of two sentimental
f---- fairies, for love in a cottage, and drawn your own doleful
picture of a bare and cheerless cabin fireside, where poverty enters
at the door and love flies out at the window. You have conjured up all
these fine-spun imaginings for naught, and fallen into all this fuss
and fever, and twitter of excitement over a supposed romance in humble
life in the region of the clouds, when in fact I merely took to my
bosom as sharer of my bed and board, metaphorically speaking, my hairy
friend of the red shirt and elastic hopes, Abner Callaway.
As stated previously June had come before the faithful old knight of
the pick and shovel had completed the work upon my late property which
had given such golden results or rather such silvery ones. I found
great pleasure in being able to remit five thousand of the proceeds of
the sale to my kindly old relative as his share in the concern, knowing
that it would add substantial comfort to his declining years. As to my
own moiety, I had determined that I would devote a small portion of it
to outfitting my first Leadville acquaintance for another expedition
to the Gunnison country, in search of his Golconda, and in three days
from the date of my mining transaction, Abner’s caravan, consisting
of a saddle mule and two pack mules, filed out of the town liberally
grubstaked for another prospecting trip. As I took his hand to bid him
good-by and godspeed, and consigned him for months to his living tomb
in the mountains, I felt that here was a man made of the stuff that
conquers new worlds and revolutionizes old ones. While I was depressed
at the mere thought of my small share in consigning him to his lonely
fate, he was chipper as a lark, and waving his hand to me as he spurred
southward, he called out cheerily, “Better luck this time, pard, I’m
goin’ to strike it rich now, sure.” So I went back to my duties without
even having enjoyed the parting luxury of enjoining him to write often,
for I knew that in all probability it would be weeks, perhaps months,
before I should have any tidings of him, with a still more somber
alternative in the background, namely, that I might one day have the
mournful pleasure of leading a searching party to find what particular
form of solitary death came to him, and what particular family of
buzzards had fattened on his vitals.
There was at that time, too, more or less danger to be encountered from
roving bands of Piutes, who came to that region in summer in search of
game, and who, however friendly they might profess to be in and around
the settlements, could scarcely resist the temptation to murder a lone
white man found prospecting on their self-allotted hunting grounds,
if they were reasonably safe from detection. Callaway was thoroughly
acquainted with the Indian character, perfectly conversant with all
their treacherous ruses and cunning devices, and the Piutes themselves
had learned long since that while it was one thing to have a troop
of United States soldiers in pursuit, it was quite another and more
serious affair when a very small number of miners and ranch men began
to “camp on their trail;” men who were entirely capable of matching
them at their own game, who knew every lonely pass and mountain trail
as well as they themselves, and whose superior ability as plainsmen and
in woodcraft made them objects of dread to marauding bands of Indians
at this period. These men were never known to bring in a prisoner, and,
in all my intercourse with these hardy frontiersmen, I have never known
an instance of an Indian fighter’s accounts of his encounters, where
one of them could be induced to describe the last act in any scene of
retribution on the Indians in which he had taken a hand. Abner Callaway
was one of these brave, hardy pioneers, who had seen the trouble
with the Bannocks in Idaho in ’76. He was a walking encyclopedia of
incidents of early struggles in the settlement of Boise Valley. He
once recounted graphically to me an experience with these troublesome
Bannocks that illustrates this point. A settlement on the lower Boise
had been raided by a band of Indians and their stock stampeded and
driven off. He formed one of a band of settlers hastily collected to
pursue and punish the thieving band. The trail led southward toward the
Snake and was plainly marked through the sage brush as there was no
chance for concealing it, with the considerable number of horses and
cattle they were rushing off.
The settlers rode hard and sighted the red devils just as they had
driven the stock into the Snake to force them across. They espied their
pursuers and plunged their riding ponies into the swift current, and
began to swim them across too. “But by this time,” said he, “we had got
within gunshot range of them,” and he looked off pensively over the
mountains as if his story were ended. Deeply interested in his tale
of adventure, I waited for the conclusion, but it did not come, and I
ventured to ask, and then what? “Well,” said he, “the saddle ponies all
turned and swam back to our side, and we gathered up our stock and went
home.”
I have always noticed the same indisposition in old soldiers to dwell
on the theme of shedding human blood, and I set it down here as a
maxim, that your true soldier or frontiersman, who has really seen
active service and participated in scenes of carnage will turn hastily
away from recording his experiences, when they lead up to that point,
and its converse as being equally true that your boasting warrior, or
settler, who tells you how many rebs he has quieted, or how many red
varmints he has scalped, you can safely classify as of the genus homo
species man, variety liar.
I take it that my reader feels my own deep interest in the welfare
of Abner Callaway, and I have thus digressed and delivered this
gratuitous, and apparently irrelevant rhapsody on Indian hunters,
that you may share the data, on which I calculated the chances of his
safety. In his favor were mature experience, familiarity to the verge
of contempt with the dangers he was to undergo, trained to read “Indian
signs,” and guard against surprises and “lightning with a Winchester”
as Abner himself would have expressed it.
June gave place to July, and July in turn to August. I began to have
anxious daily thoughts of my absent partner though I had no reason
to expect that he would return till his provisions were exhausted,
which, with the game he would be likely to kill, he estimated would
last him till the rigors of that high altitude began to drive him down
to lower altitudes. There was of course the chance that I might have
tidings of him from some returning prospector, but it was a chance in
a hundred, for the region of country where he was operating was very
little traversed by miners, and only a few lonely sheep camps were
scattered over the mountains to mark the white man’s dominion of the
region. Though no spiritualist, I have often noticed that mind seems to
influence mind at times, regardless of intervening distances.
You write to a friend from whom you have not heard in a long time.
Your letter on its journey crosses the path of one from that friend
expressing some of the very ideas, and in the same words that you used
in addressing him. Another friend living at the distance of a three
hours’ drive has made no appointment to visit you, and you have no
particular reason for expecting him soon, but something tells you that
he will come to-day, and for three hours your thoughts keep constantly
recurring to that friend, you know not why, and presently he drives up.
The mysterious influences that beget such experiences as these, in
the everyday affairs of thousands of responsible people, are those
of which unscrupulous people take advantage and give exaggerated and
fraudulent exhibitions of spiritualistic manifestations, depending upon
this little germ of truth, as the sugar coating of the bitter pill of
deception, to enable the public to swallow it.
That mighty philosopher of our own time and country, Joseph Cook,
says, “There can be no doubt that in these things there is something
superhuman, but nothing supernatural.” Yet, I confess, that after all,
when I had been troubled for several days with forebodings of danger
to my partner, and had on one particular day been especially anxious,
and when toward evening a man in rough frontier dress, bestriding a
jaded cayuse, rode up to our office, and I heard him inquire for Thomas
Hardman, I felt that I was growing white as a ghost and could scarcely
steady my legs to walk to the door, and inform him that I was he.
He eyed me critically to ascertain, as I thought, whether I was capable
of standing up under the news he was about to deliver, I could not
stand the suspense. “Have you seen Callaway?” I inquired.
“You bet I have,” was his reply, “parted from him six days ago. Was out
thar tending to some sheep camps I’ve got out thar.”
“How is the old man?” I inquired, a little impatiently, to clip off an
evident intention on his part to give me a complete history of the rise
and progress of the sheep industry, and the decline and fall of the
price of wool. He drew his countenance down through several distinct
stages of change to an expression of one who has important news to
impart and rather enjoys the suspense he sees you are suffering; then
assuming a confidential air, and a glitter of cunning mingled with
pleasure in his eye at being the bearer of important news, he leans
toward me over the neck of his tired horse, places both hands on the
pommel of his saddle, looks cautiously all around for eavesdroppers
and then almost whispers: “The old man’s struck it rich!” The sudden
swinging of the mind from its dark forebodings to contemplating sudden
and immense wealth was making my legs unmanageable again, but as soon
as I could steady myself, I invited the traveler to lodge with me at
The Occidental till morning, when he and I would arrange for a private
interview in our office after hours, for the privacy of my sleeping
apartment was something less than that of a sleeping car.
During our evening meal, I learned from his conversation, coupled with
Abner’s note to me that my new acquaintance, Riley Cox, was no other
than the same rancher who had stumbled upon the fragment of quartz
that had set the old man wild to find the parent ledge, and that the
present location of the prospector was made as the direct result of
that find, and that therefore Mr. Cox would come in as half owner in
the mine by agreement, in consideration of his showing where he had
found the specimen that fairly glittered with gold. Far into the night
we occupied my employer’s office and talked of the lucky events, and I
learned in detail all the circumstances of the discovery.
He was the bearer of a little scrawl of a letter from the old boy
himself, who wrote in his characteristic way, as follows:
“GUNNISON COUNTRY,
---- 187-
“MR. THOMAS HARDMAN, Leadville, Colo.
“Glory hallelujah, pard, I’ve struck her at last and she’s richer
than I ever dreamed! Don’t let a whisper of it get around till we git
our choice of location. Bring plenty of provisions and ammunition to
supply another hand or two. Your pard,
“ABNER CALLAWAY.”
I waited upon my employer early next morning, and offered my
resignation, explaining to him that business of the most urgent and
important nature called me away, and that I should take it as a mark of
his confidence in me as an employee if he would for the present, take
my statement on faith and let my movements be as quiet as possible,
assuring him only that I was acting in good faith, and from honorable
motives, and would some day explain the cause of my hasty departure
from his employ, where I had received nothing but the most courteous
treatment. To all this my employer was good enough to assent, and
expressed his regret that our relations could not continue, and said he
had not the slightest doubt as to the integrity of my motives and quite
outdid me in generous praise. We shook hands cordially, and the waves
of time engulfed this phase of my life forever, a phase of existence
to which I have ever looked back with pleasure as being not the least
happy of my life.
As rapidly as possible, we conducted our outfitting, and with as much
secrecy as possible, the next morning we mounted our horses and struck
out for the lonely region known as the Gunnison country. My experience
as a rider of bronchos had been confined to very narrow limits, and my
awkward mode of riding was a great source of amusement to my guide, and
traveling companion. “Say, squire,” he would inquire, “where did you
learn that ere ornamental kind of ridin’? Maybe you’d better turn your
toes in a little more or your spur might catch yer cayuse in the ribs,
and you’d be purty sure to hev a circus right away.”
But presently I forgot his caution again and inadvertently pressed my
heel to the animal’s flank. The next thing I knew I was holding on
to the pommel with both hands, and my steed was rolling himself into
the shape of a crescent moon, but his actions had none of the placid
spirit of that calm orb. He churned me up and down till I saw stars in
countless numbers. It seemed to me that he sprang ten feet clear of
the ground, and came down with his feet in a cluster, that would have
enabled him to stand with ease on my office stool. But he couldn’t seem
to find a resting place for the sole of his foot, and each time he
rose in the air he came down with an emphasis that led me to suspect
that he might have been used in the early mining days as a stamp mill
to reduce refractory ores, and imagined he was again in the field to
compete against steam power and wrought iron. For my part I would have
been glad to retire from the competitive trial, but was delicate about
trying to alight just here as the earth seemed to be particularly
hard in this spot, judging from my pony’s experience in alighting.
So I held on with might and main to the pommel, and wound my legs,
which are a fair length, affectionately around the beast’s waist in a
rigid embrace till my companion, who was writhing on his horse’s neck
in wild paroxysms of laughter, managed to find breath to yell, “Toes
out! You’re spurrin’ him.” Then it dawned on me that the harder he had
bucked, the closer I had pressed the rowels toward his vitals, and as
soon as I relaxed my muscles he subsided into his usual easy swinging
lope.
“Confound the brute,” I said, “you told me he was warranted to be
gentle as a kitten.”
“So he was,” said Riley, “but I guess if you’d pay your compliments to
a kitten in the same way, you’d feel her claws, but if you’re agoin to
take lessons of me as your ridin’ master, I’ll lay this rule down first
and foremost, never tamper with a cayuse’s ribs if you don’t want to
take part in a sun-dance sudden-like.”
After that practical lesson on the subject of riding, I got on pretty
well the first day out. But when we rolled out of our blankets next
morning, after my first experience in camping out, I was so sore and
stiff that I despaired of being able to go on; but after I had moved
around a little, and assisted Riley to make a fire preparatory to
slapjacks and coffee, I began to imbibe the spirit of our adventure,
and in a measure threw off the effects of my hard day’s breaking-in to
a new life.
I found that Riley was no novice at camp cooking. In a twinkling he
had mixed a mess of dough for the slapjacks, using only some baking
powder and a little fat from the frying pan with the flour and in a few
minutes he had removed the meat from the pan and mapped out a cake,
whose dimensions were limited only by the rim of the pan. He watched it
carefully over the fire till it was baked on one side, then grasping
the frying pan by the long handle, he gave it a little shake to make
sure that the cake did not adhere to the pan, and then tossed it in the
air with a peculiar motion which caused the dainty to turn completely
over in the air, and dexterously caught it squarely, or rather roundly,
in the pan. I never have forgotten the delicious flavor of that
morning’s meal of slapjacks, fat bacon, and black coffee. Delmonico
has since entered the field as a rival of Riley Cox in catering to
my appetite, but I cannot even remember what dishes constituted the
bill of fare, while every feature of that mountain meal is as plain
before my eyes as though it had been yesterday. The beautiful nut-brown
complexion of the bacon, the innate sweetness of that simple cake, the
taste of the inky coffee, are all with me yet, owing, no doubt, to
the zest imparted to my appetite by sleeping in the open air of the
mountains, that was in itself exhilarating in the highest degree; but
many times I have sighed for the enjoyment of that breakfast, over a
much more sumptuous one, and reflected, though not a man given to
moralizing, that our enjoyment in the world depended a great deal more
on our capacity to enjoy the present privilege than in the accidental
circumstances attending us.
Our ponies had been picketed out or “lariated,” in Western phrase, to
feed upon the bunch grass. This hardy race of horses, probably from old
Spanish stock, has challenged the admiration of the world for their
endurance and ability to live on coarse, scanty fare, and without them
the great Western prairies and the Rocky Mountain mining regions could
hardly have been developed so rapidly.
Riley “calcerlated” we had ridden “nigh onter fifty mile,” the day
before, and our ponies started off again fresh as when we left
Leadville; and we kept up this gait during the whole trip, for he said,
“I like to strike a lick and keep it.”
Their noonday repast was what they could nibble in one short hour that
we halted, and all day they seemed to feel no weariness or disposition
to slacken their speed.
About 3 o’clock on this second day of our journey, we reached the
Gunnison River, and our course lay down the stream. We had passed one
or two sheep ranches during the day, the only signs of occupation
by man; but on some of the open plateaus we had sighted plenty of
antelope, and in more wooded part had started several deer, one of
which Riley shot for our use in camp.
The direction of our journey now following the windings of the stream,
was more westerly, and toward the end of our journey, on the fifth day,
we seemed to be traveling almost northward again.
Worn with our long journey, and sunburned till we were as red as
Indians, and unkempt as the street-arab, whose dwelling is a stray box
or barrel, without the superfluous furniture of combs and brushes; but
sublimely indifferent to outward appearance where there was none to
offer criticism, we made a flourish of riding into camp with a burst
of speed, just as the sun was hiding behind the mountains, and found
our senior partner busily engaged in preparing supper. His lurid dress
and mass of snowy beard and hair, calling up a vision of an infatuated
alchemist, toiling over his crucible to find the hidden mysteries, the
process that had turned nature’s baser metals to sterling gold, or a
venerable priest of the Druids, performing his evening devotions, and
practicing his mysterious incantations.
His alert ears soon caught the sound of our horses’ hoofs, and when he
recognized us as friends, he laid down the rifle he had mechanically
seized, and with the joy that a Russian exile might feel when he was
restored to his home and friends, after years of solitude, he saluted
us with a boyish whoop, and came out to meet us with pleasure beaming
from his honest face.
“How’dy, pardners! glad to see you. Its been sort a lonesome like sence
you went away, but I’ve had plenty to occupy my spare moments.” I knew
before he spoke, that he had good news to confirm the first tidings of
happy omen I had received, but after greeting him with the warmth of
affection that I had from the first hours of our acquaintance begun to
feel for this guileless veteran of the frontier, I inquired how the new
Ophir was panning out.
“Why, bless the kid’s innocent heart,” said Abner, turning to Riley,
“it don’t pan out at all, it’s the pure stuff,” and he took from his
pocket a nugget of pure gold as big as an egg. “There boys, how do you
like the complexion of that? I found that down by the river, in the
gravel, before I struck the ledge up here, and there’s enough of ’em
down there yet to make interest in digging; but we can’t afford to
waste our time with the gravel beds now. Lariat your horses in that
little canyon yander, and I’ll have supper ready in a jiffy.”
His camp was in a grove of evergreen timber, on a little plateau on the
side of the mountain. It was sheltered from the north by a ledge of
rocks, rising abruptly in the rear of his tent, and from underneath
the rock gushed a spring of pure water. The view to the south was a
grand stretch of mountain and valley that clothes the rugged heights
of Colorado with such sublimity and grandeur, and makes it famous for
its dizzy peaks, and awe-inspiring canyons and gorges, beautiful for
situation, the joy of the whole fraternity of summer-outing earth are
Pike’s Peak, Colorado Springs, South Park, and The Gunnison Country.
But the greatest of these, and far exceeding the others in its
gold-hued prospects for us, is the Gunnison Country.
The Old Man of the Mountain soon invited us to a supper fit for a king,
consisting of venison steak, in addition to the ever-present slapjacks
and coffee. He related fully, and to our entire satisfaction, every
step of his onward way, which led to the supreme discovery. He told
us of panning out free gold on the Gunnison at this point; of finding
several small nuggets, among the finer particles, but which were all
of the coarse variety, and of how he had one day followed up a little
gulch opening into the Gunnison, and how, from the first panful he
had taken the nugget he showed us, and afterward several others, a
trifle smaller. He related how he had found “blossome quartz” strewed
plentifully around here, that were identical in character, and similar
in promise of riches untold to him who should discover the home-nest
of these stragglers, to the fragment which Riley had found in another
gulch not far away.
Foot by foot, and yard by yard, he traced the path to the ledge, from
these fragments, and recounted how his labors were impeded as he
climbed higher up the mountain, in the almost impenetrable jungle.
Forest trees grew so thickly that it was hard enough to make way even
over their matted, and arching, and intertwining roots, and these
troubles were soon augmented by encountering an area strewn with
rocks, and choked with fallen trees, among the standing ones, till
he could scarcely make his way through them, much less seem to have
a ghost of a chance to take bearings and search for drift ore; but
he chopped and scrabbled, and sampled, and fought his way through
the wilderness--literally fought--for, with other tribulations, he
was suddenly halted one day by a huge grizzly bear in his path; but
though the grizzly was larger than he, Abner Callaway was not the
man on that account to forgive him, but with his forty-four calibre
six-shooter he took a shot at him, though he knew his own life depended
on the accuracy of his eye, and the steadiness of his aim, for it is
an axiom among mountaineers that there is only one vulnerable spot
in a grizzly’s make-up, one place where the bullet can do execution
complete and sudden enough to prevent his killing the hunter before he
himself yields up his substantial ghost, and that is to reach the neck
joint and break it. But the sturdy old man had not endured a lifetime
of privation and toil as a mere prelude to this supreme opportunity,
to refuse this little test when it came, and he promptly dislocated
his neck, and continued on his way. He made his way at last to
comparatively open ground, and here he progressed rapidly for the trail
was becoming “warm” as the hunters say, and he knew by the character
of the specimens he found that he was nearing the main or parent
ledge, and his excitement grew in proportion as the signs increased in
meaning, till for the two last days he hardly took time for food or
rest while daylight lasted, and he assured us that he would have worked
all night if he could have accomplished anything by so doing, but
darkness mercifully intervened and compelled him to take some rest; but
even his dreams were gold-haunted and disquieting. At last the supreme
moment arrived when he was able to trace the truant rock that had
caused all this trouble, to its home on this elevated mountain peak,
and reap in anticipation ample reward for all his toil.
We were too much excited to sleep that night, and discussed ways and
means, by the light of a blazing fire before our tent. We commended
Callaway for his wise choice of a camp located in this sheltered,
snug little park, and decided, first of all, as a measure of common
prudence, to build a substantial cabin of spruce logs, which grew
straight and smooth, at our tent door.
As we now expected to be at home to callers for some time, we preferred
to receive in a structure of more substantial make than of canvas, for
there was the possibility that a grizzly might decide to investigate
our camp for potato parings, as they sometimes did, and it would be
rather rude in bruin to roll us over at midnight, and uncomfortable for
us. Besides, as I have hinted, there was the possibility ever before us
of being obliged to be polite to a band of Piutes, and nothing gives
such force to a white man’s display of hospitalities toward his red
brother, as a good show of strength to back it.
We napped in our blankets for an hour or two before daylight, and had
drowsy visions of nuggets of gold boiling up from the depths with the
water of our spring. Then again our vagrant fancies would rove to the
ledge above our heads, and we beheld an avalanche forming and gathering
strength as it came tearing its way downward till it was powerful
enough to mow a path through the tangled mass that had so completely
obstructed Callaway’s upward way, and roaring and growling, deposited
its ponderous mass of earth, rocks, and trees on the little plateau,
where we camped. Just as we sprang up to claim and appropriate the
nuggets of gold that were strewn all around, we were inconsiderate
enough to awake, and the reality of our find seemed tame and small,
compared with the mine of wealth we had found in the realms of
imagination. So, human imagination ever keeps so far in advance of the
reality, that we fail to appreciate the blessings within our reach,
because they are belittled by a spendthrift fancy.
Behold the tenderly nurtured denizen of the city, who had never
wrestled with labor any harsher than an obstreperous conjugation, or an
equation that would not equate, transformed by the prevailing frenzy
for a yellow worthless metal, valued by barbarians only because it had
a rich color and was indestructible, by any ordinary method. Behold
him, I say, donning the garb of the miner and preparing with a heart
callous to every other consideration to harden his hands with the pick
and shovel, his feet with the coarse, heavy, cowhide boots; to conform
every part of his anatomy, in fact, not already calloused by the
saddle, to the muscular status of an honest laborer, earning his bread
by the sweat of his brow, and in fact feeling a lighter conscience in
so doing, feeling more in sympathy with the general plan of the Creator
than in any other vocation in which he had engaged; I was owing my
prosperity to the labors of no living man, and abridging the prosperity
of no brother while enhancing my own. I learned to use the ax to some
purpose while building our rustic camp and grew to have so ravenous an
appetite in the bracing mountain air aided by active exercise, that my
companions rallied me on the necessity of our hiring some professional
hunter to supply us with meat. I own that I was alarmed for my life,
and feared sometimes that I was digging my grave with my teeth, but
thanks to the absence of hurtful qualities of wild game, I ate it with
impunity, and grew almost as burly of form and fantastic in gear as
Uncle Abner.
Our cabin, when finished, was a model of rustic beauty. The logs were
uniform in size, straight as nature could make them, and had their
natural bark covering. The roof was of cedar clapboards, and not only
protected us from the inclement weather, but filled the house with
delicious spicy fragrance. A small window-space, but no window glass, a
door of cedar, and some rude bunks of the same, completed our domicile.
For furniture, we had a pair of antlers fastened to the wall, on which
we hung our Winchesters. A cedar table, with poles for legs, a set of
rude shelves, to contain our coffee pot, frying pan, and tin dishes.
Fireplace we had none, but did our cooking outside by the wall of
rock, which rose up a few feet from the cabin, and a spot convenient
to water. The logs forming the walls were notched a foot from the end,
leaving a handsome double projection at each corner. The roof was also
given a liberal share of lap-over, giving our mansion a pretty and cosy
appearance. We also put up a tiny portico on natural cedar pillars with
a gentler slope of roof than that of the cabin, of which it seemed to
be a projection, and put on the finishing touches by making a little
rustic bench on either side of the doorway.
Whatever may be said of our prospects, none of us could lay claim to
being millionaires at that period; but I doubt if ever a palatial
urban residence was viewed with more of the pride of ownership than we
lavished upon our skyward dwelling. I have since that period been the
happy owner of gold enough to satisfy any reasonable desire, and have
built and inhabited several magnificent up-town residences in a region
of city splendor, but I often pine for the little brown cabin in the
Rockies, and the enthusiastic enjoyment of that rude habitation, that
blessed it, and fulfilled all the requirements and definitions of the
magic word, home.
“Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!” then would I reap a wholesome
and complete revenge, when I beheld him toiling to give voice to the
rushing stream of agitation in his bosom. To see him sweating, and
tearing his hair in a vain endeavor to express the wild and tumultuous
hopes and aspirations of youth; to paint the bright visions of wealth
attained, ambition satisfied, and love requited and restored to its
object in their fitting trials, and rack his harassed brain for fitting
similes of somber hue, to express the depths of despair! I would liken
him to myself as my spirits sunk, when I computed the chances in favor
of my seeing the adorable Lena again. When I reflected on all that
might happen to me, and the misgivings lest she should die, should be
persuaded that I was already dead, should be cajoled, coerced into
marriage for mercenary considerations, I was sorely tempted to present
my interest in the Rocky Mountains to my partners, and fly from these
desolate scenes, and break through the barrier of banishment from her
presence, imposed by tyrannical parents.
But at last, after my mind had run through all these stages of
despondency, desperation, and recklessness of consequences, it would
come sullenly back to the question of honor, and conscientious
scruples against breaking a sacred promise; then, even though I was
not in a position to make anything but Hobson’s choice, my thoughts
would subside into tranquility again, and my current of thought turn
hopefully again to the work of turning this rugged mountain peak into
a castle of gold, with a golden haired divinity to enlighten it.
And now, without any further delay to build rustic cabins in the
mountains, or to erect golden castles in the air, we went to work in
earnest to develop our claim, and take out the precious ore.
We were well aware that it behooved our mine to be a remarkably rich
one in order to give us any immediate returns, situated as it was so
far from smelting facilities. It must either yield the precious ore
in such quantities, and of such quality as would induce capital to
enlist with us, and bring machinery for reducing it to the spot, or it
must yield at least a moderate amount of ore so high in grade, that we
could afford to transport it to the railroad by pack train. Our plan of
action was to make a preliminary test of our find, locate its center
as nearly as possible, then explore the mountain around it to get some
idea of the extent of the ledge, and get at a basis for forming some
sort of intelligent opinion as to what the probable effect of our
discovery would be on the public when it was revealed. We also had, as
original discoverers, a chance to choose our claim as a company and
locate it; then each one of us could stake off an individual claim,
and, in addition to all that, we could form new companies to the extent
of the combinations, possible by including any two of our trio in each
new company. All these projects we worked out when the day’s task was
done, and we lounged on our bunks, and smoked our pipes, or sat on our
rustic benches by the door.
But while we were working and planning, and building our airy
structures, fate was outlining a vastly different line of life for us.
But no spirit voice ever whispered to us of any evil doom impending,
and we worked cheerfully on, satisfied more fully every day that our
scout had not made any mistake, either in his estimate of the block
of quartz at the sheep camp, or of the fact of his having tracked it
to earth. The ledge showed a great thickness of ore and had all the
indications of possessing staying qualities. We calculated that in
about three weeks we would get out specimens from a depth that would
justify us in forming a judgment. Then we intended to load our pack
train with samples, try to engage some wandering prospectors to help,
while one of the party went to Leadville to get an assay, and to bring
back a supply of provisions. Assays in practical mining life are of
two classes, those of quantity and those of quality. An experienced
miner can, with rude utensils, make an assay, that will determine, in
a general way, the value of his ore, but it requires the skill and
appliances of the professional assayer to determine the quantity of
gold, or other mineral, in a given weight of rock. My experience in
the office, coupled with that of Uncle Abner, which was of the hard,
practical sort, tended to satisfy us that in quality we were all right,
that we were not mistaking a shadow for the substance, or pyrites of
iron, the “fool’s gold,” for the sterling article; but our methods were
too crude to even approximate the quantity of the yellow metal per ton,
or to determine what other minerals might be found in connection with
the gold. Uncle Abner’s faith was implicit as a child’s and his mind as
placidly elevated by his good fortune, as though it were already in his
coffers. But our knight of the golden fleece was a little skeptical of
the intrinsic worth of the ore, and his mind wandered a good deal to
his flocks, and he would remark that, “after all, the sheep business is
good enough for me, an’ I ortor bin in camp helpin’ the boys through
lammin’ time.” But though he might squirm a little under the influence
of the gold craze, he was as much a devoted slave to it as any of us,
and we could not have driven him to his sheep camp though he knew his
sheep would in reality bear golden fleeces this year.
The fragrance of the apple blossom is an agreeable announcement of
fruit forthcoming, and inhaling it, we fall into a most delicious state
of expectancy, and the apples of imagination are in a moment rosy,
ripe, and mellow before the eye, and luscious and delightful to the
taste; but there is a time for frosts to nip the blossoms, storms to
try the branches, and lawless urchins to snatch the matured fruit from
your grasp and dash all your high hopes to earth. We were destined, by
outrageous fortune, to be again balked in our projects, and have the
hand of the spoiler anticipate our good fortune, and tear it from us.
The Piutes had been reported at the ranches as hunting in the Elk
Mountains, south of us, for a week or two, in great numbers, but were
said to be peaceably disposed. Within a week Uncle Abner had seen
Indian signs while hunting deer for our camp a mile or two southward,
and had cautioned us to keep a sharp lookout for them, and directed us
to keep our horses and mules in the thick underbrush all day and picket
them in the little open canyon only at night, that we might offer no
premium to their cupidity, for it is well known that a redskin can
hardly resist the temptation to steal a horse on every occasion, even
at the risk of bringing swift and terrible retribution upon himself
from the ranchmen and miners.
We were progressing finely with our tunnel, and expected to reach
the ledge at a depth of a hundred feet or more by drifting into the
mountain side in a few days more, and were discussing the question
as to which one should go to Leadville, one evening as we came down
the mountain from our work, to camp, when all at once Abner stopped
suddenly, and pointed to the thicket of fir and cedar saplings where we
had tied our horses, and exclaimed: “Holy Moses! boys, our horses are
gone.”
And just as he spoke several rifles cracked, the fire coming,
apparently, from the ledge above our cabin, and Riley Cox, our faithful
partner fell dead before our eyes.
Quick as a flash Uncle Abner seized the form of our luckless partner,
and sprang toward our cabin, only a few steps distant, where we were
safe from the murderous fire of the demons lying behind the rocks above
our heads, for our cabin stood too close to the rock wall to be in
range of their rifles. Evidently they had counted upon finishing us
before we reached it.
“Curse the red devils,” said Callaway, “It will take a hundred of
their worthless scalps to pay up the score on poor Riley. They knew
better than to meet him in open fight like men. Many a one of them he
has made to bite the dust.” While he talked he was getting our arms
and ammunition in order, while I, who had never seen anything harsher
than a drunken fisticuff, was too much shaken by the suddenness of the
attack to be of much service to anybody. But gradually I became fired
by Abner’s fusillade of invectives, with a desire for revenge, and
soon found myself wishing for a chance to draw a bead on an Indian’s
paint-stained, and feather-decked head.
It was more from long habit than from any real fear that we would be
attacked by Indians that led Uncle Abner to select a strong spot for
his cabin. The cliff was so precipitous in the rear of our cabin as
to render our position inaccessible from that direction, in fact, was
so overhung by a rocky ledge halfway up the side that the reds, we
believed, could not catch a glimpse of our fort from that direction;
and the old man was of the opinion that they would try to crawl up
through the fir and pine trees in front of our cabin, hiding behind
the rocks and trees, wait for a chance to pick us off without risk
to themselves. We had a small porthole in our heavy puncheon door,
constructed to command the little canyon, where our horses had fed, to
enable us to get a shot at any prowling bear that might haunt our camp
to devour the remains of our daily bill of fare thrown out, or endanger
the safety of the horses and mules.
With eagle eyes Callaway watched for any movement in this direction,
but we could not see or hear anything to indicate what the next move
would be, and the suspense of our situation grew terrible, and we were
half resolved to break away from our cabin, find refuge behind trees
and rocks, and fight till we drove them off or were killed in our
tracks, which we felt would be better than dying like rats in a hole,
without being able to make a struggle for life.
All at once we heard an indistinct roaring and rushing sound far up the
mountain, and even Uncle Abner’s face grew pale at the sound. “My God,
pardner, they’re starting an avalanche! You’d better say your prayers
now, my boy. Good-by, lad. I’ve been takin’ a likin’ to you all along,
but our time has come,” and he grasped my hand as if he would meet his
death more contentedly with some nearer human sympathy than he had
ever known in his life. The roar had died away again for a moment, and
I began to hope that my venerable friend was mistaken as to the cause
of the noise; but Abner only remarked, “That one lodged against some
trees before it got under headway, but they’ll try it again.” And in
another minute, to confirm his opinion, we heard again the dull sound,
like distant thunder, growing louder and stronger. We held our breath
in terror, expecting that our last moment had come, and that in the
next we would be lying crushed and shapeless beneath the ruins of our
cabin. The awful storm was increasing in distinctness and volume, and
every other sound was drowned. My faithful old friend’s lips moved, but
I could hear no sound. My mind flew with lightning wing to the scenes
of the past, before I had dreamed of such wild adventures, and reveled
for one brief moment once more in the memory of careless youth and
guiltless love. I thought of the slow torture of suspense in store for
Lena as the years revolved without bringing any tidings of her lover,
buried beneath a mountain, his fate unknown, and I had a distinct
feeling of the injustice of fate in drawing me to such a death, and
Lena to the eternal doubt as to whether I had been lost, or had proven
inconstant to my promise and to her. All these thoughts flitted through
my mind in one brief moment, while the horrors of a most terrifying
death were impending over us, and the next instant the whole mass of
rock and earth and huge trees burst with a terrific crash upon us. I
believe that in all the mental agonies of dying by violence we suffered
death. The light of day suddenly went out, our cabin rocked like a
miner’s cradle, and, as the roar subsided, we gazed stupidly at each
other, as bewildered creatures entering upon a new world try to fathom
the mysteries that surround them.
Surely we were in the spirit land, or in the land of chaos. But no, the
light of day was again streaming into our cabin, which stood untouched,
and we unscathed. “Thank God, my boy, thank God,” said Abner fervently,
“She overleaped us, the ledge threw her off. Look out there!” If the
scene in front of our cabin had been before our vision in that moment
of fancied death, the illusion would have been complete. What had
just been a fine grove, a gentle slope, and a grassy canyon, were
now the wildest mass of rock and fine earth, and what had once been
heavy trees, were now literally ground into kindling wood, making a
mass of the wildest ruin; and we could hardly believe our senses that
this chaotic scene was lately occupied by a bit of exquisite pastoral
scenery, fit to grace the palatial residence of one of “the four
hundred.”
“They’ll try it again,” I said, “let us get out of this trap before we
are crushed like gophers.”
“No, my unsophistical kidling, they’ll not try that game again, a
redskin has sense enough to see that we are under the wing of the
ledge of rock up there, and he doesn’t relish being beaten well enough
to invite defeat a second time. They’ll break out in a new place
presently, take my word for that.”
The accuracy of his judgment was made apparent a minute later when,
pung! came a rifle bullet through the clapboard roof, and buried itself
in the floor close to my feet, and a moment later another striking
uncomfortably close to us.
“That’s their game is it?” cried Callaway, “They’re up in the top of
that old cedar above us; now lad, you stand on our bunk, and push one
of the clap boards aside, and I’ll try to answer the red dogs in the
same kind of lingo.”
I quickly did as directed, our roof being fastened down by the
primitive weight-pole, and it was an easy task to push one aside. The
moment an opening was made, another bullet struck the floor through
the sky-port, showing their alertness, and their good marksmanship.
The moment after the bullet struck, Uncle Abner was standing over the
spot where it buried itself in the floor, and casting one keen glance
upward, he threw his rifle to his shoulder, his eye came to the level
of the barrel and his muscles seemed to grow perfectly rigid for an
instant, and the next a puff of smoke, a deafening report in the narrow
space of the cabin, and glancing upward we beheld a horrible sight,
and one which I would give half my estate to forget. The instant Abner
fired, an Indian warrior, with a wild screech of despair, tumbled
out of the thick foliage of a scraggy cedar that grew on the rock
shelf that had saved us from annihilation, and overhung our cabin
sufficiently to give any one perched in its topmost branches, a view
of our cabin, which could not be had from the ledge itself. With the
creeping horror in every nerve we saw him fall, flinging his arms
wildly as he came, till he struck upon the point of a rock fifty
or sixty feet below the root of his tree-perch, rebound and fall a
lifeless heap through the remaining space with a sickening thud upon
the top of the pile that had lately formed the frightful avalanche.
“That makes two tricks that we know of that they’ll not be likely to
hanker after any more, and now if we can beat them at one or two more,
they’ll conclude their medicine isn’t good, and go away and leave us;
but we don’t want to count on that, or let them get the drop on us,
the sneaking, thieving, red devils. I wish the secretary of infernal
affairs was out here, I’d like to put him up on the top of the old
shanty and let the devils shoot at him awhile. It would give him
good practical views on the Indian question, and help him to ‘revise
his humane and politic policy toward our red brother,’ and bring his
views to a sudden focus about the time the Piutes focused a dozen
or so rifles on him. But Uncle Sam will go on cuddling up the lazy,
shiftless, good-for-nothing, bloodthirsty heathen, and furnish them
with good warm blankets to sleep in while on the warpath, and ration
out good beef fit for a white man, and make him supremely independent
and comfortable in his diabolical career of scalp-lifting, and let him
ride free on all railroad trains, provided he will content himself
with a seat in the smoking car, and the obliging conductor of this
government barouche, will stop his train at any isolated siding to
allow Balky Horse, or Crow Wing, to alight at his convenience, as I
have seen them do, and encourage them to regard the western settler as
a sort of raw dog, too raw to be eaten, but convenient for scalping
purposes. If the people of the East want justice for the red men, let
’em come out here and deal out the parcels to ’em themselves. I’m not
denyin’ that the Injuns have been treated meaner ’n rot, but after the
east had fleeced them of their land, they told their red brother, that
they’re so much concerned about now, to move on to a safer distance,
and so they shut themselves conveniently of the penalty of their deeds;
and now they set themselve up to judge the white man who has their
deviltries toward the Injuns wreaked upon his unlucky head.”
While the old pioneer was delivering himself of this eulogy on the
administration, he was keeping a sharp lookout through the ports for
the next act in the tragedy to begin. It was now nearly dark and he
hoped that if we could keep them at bay for a little longer, they would
retire for the night, and at least give us a little respite before
finishing us up, and taking our scalps to be salted, smoked, and dried
as carefully as their skins and belts. I had no fancy for going through
life without my scalp lock, and though the venerable Abner was as cool
as if he were cooking his supper, he expressed his determination to
preserve his white locks a little longer from their grasp. “Just to let
’em know that Long Breath, as the Bannocks used to call me, counts his
scalp worth several dog-eaters’ scalps yet.”
The grim humor of the old man, under such distressing circumstances as
ours, was refreshing, and relieved the terrible strain on my nerves,
on this, my first experience under fire, as some instance of valor
or grotesque humor among the soldiers in battle for the first time
diverted their thoughts from their own dangers, and tempered their
courage into the tough, reliable, steady article of the veteran.
We were now called upon to face another attack, and from the opposite
direction. I detected a savage crawling toward the front of our cabin,
over the rubbish and dirt from the mountain top. Abner watched keenly a
minute or two, and made out ten reds advancing in a line the same way.
Presently he made out that they were shoving a pole along in advance of
themselves, and he knew in a moment that they hoped to take advantage
of the dusk, to crawl quite close unobserved, rush for the door with
a heavy pole on their shoulders and turn it into a battering ram, and
crush in our cabin door; they would in all probability disperse right
and left, to give others concealed behind the rubbish, a chance to open
fire on us, hoping to kill us at the first onset.
“Quick! pard, get Riley’s rifle all ready, lay the cartridges beside
you, have your pistols handy and pass the rifles to me one at a time,
when mine is empty, and then, if I need ’em, the pistols. Here they
come! I’d advise ’em to say their prayers to their Piute god.”
When within about fifteen paces, they rose to their feet suddenly,
and with their demon-inspired war-whoop started on the run for the
door, with their assaulting engine borne aloft on their shoulders; but
they had hardly taken the second step till two of them in range fell
before the first shot, and in less than thirty seconds six of the ten
who started on their mission of destruction, were lying on the ground
lifeless enough. The other four dropped their ponderous weapon, and
beat a rapid retreat for cover, but not rapid enough to escape two
shots from Long Breath, and at each shot an Indian fell. Only two of
the ten lived to repent of their dangerous experiment.
“Lie low now, lad,” exclaimed Abner, as soon as the two unhurt savages
reached cover, and the words had hardly warned me back from the
porthole before a volley of bullets rattled on the door or pattered
into the thick wall on either side of it. “Poor Riley,” said Abner,
“I’ll give him some company to the spirit land anyway; maybe it’ll be
better’n none though he never was perticklerly stuck on red society.”
When the leaden shower had subsided, we ventured again to reconnoiter,
and Abner’s piercing eye detected a thin haze of smoke rising from
the direction of the late attack. “Aha! they’re goin’ to try their old
trick of burnin’ us out. They’ll find us still doin’ business at the
old stand with one or two new fancy touches added to our line.” He
seized an ax, quickly knocked one of the chinking blocks from each end
of our cabin, for portholes there, thus giving us a commanding view of
the approaches in every direction.
“The body of ’em will make a rush and a whoop toward the front, but
look out for three or four devils with firebrands, sneakin’ around the
other sides, they are the lads we want to pay our special compliments
to. The others won’t dare to do much shootin’ while their mates
are cavortin’ round here, for fear of hittin’ ’em and they’ve lost
consida’ble many painted dog markets already.”
All at once the most diabolical war-whoop sounded, and about twenty
hideously painted braves appeared at some distance from the cabin,
flourishing their knives and yelling like furies, but somehow did
not make much progress toward the cabin and being in the secret of
their game, thanks to a riper experience than mine, we gave them
comparatively little attention, and soon saw two indians on either side
of the war party separate themselves from their comrades, and sneaking
and dodging from one cover to another, gradually work around by a
circuitous route to a point where, as they supposed, they could rush
unobserved upon the gable ends of the house, and fling the firebrands
they carried up on the roof and against the walls; but Callaway soon
undeceived this party, and laid them down to reflect on the evidence
of the senses, and whether it was not unsafe, as transcendentalists
affirm, to trust them; and my two changed their purpose toward us, or
were countermanded by their chief, or some other unforeseen contingency
arose, and that attempt was given out. “I think they’ve got enough for
to-night,” said Abner, “we’ll talk to ’em some other way later on; I’ve
been among these western Injuns a good deal, and I never knew one of
’em to favor going into an attack by night; but just as day is breaking
is their time. We’ll be far from here by that time. Never mind, lad,
we’ll come out all right now; they’ve about run out of tricks; I know
’em all, pat. They may get up courage early to-night to try one or two
of their old tricks to coax us out of the cabin where they can finish
us safe and sound, but we may refuse to dance to their music.”