Chief’s tepee. I thought this strange, for he had always held his
councils in our tepee. The next morning they held another council, so I
thought I would go over and see what it was all about. But when I got
to the door of the council tepee, I met an Indian who told me to run
back, that they did not want me in there. This puzzled me, for I had
never before been sent away from the councils.
When I got back to our tepee, mother and Hanabi were both crying. I
knew then that something serious was up, but they would not tell me a
word about it. I thought that Pocatello’s Indians wanted Washakie to
help them in some bloody affair with the whites.
Things went on in this way for four days. The Indians kept on holding
councils, but I could not learn what was the cause. I saw other squaws
come to our tepee, but when I came near them, they would stop talking.
This made me think that the trouble had something to do with me, and I
worried a good deal about it.
On the fifth morning Washakie sent for me. I went and found about
fifteen Indians at the council. The War Chief first asked me how old I
was.
“About fourteen years,” I answered.
“How old were you when you left home?” he went on.
“Nearly twelve.”
“Were you stolen away or did you come to us of your own accord?” was
his next question.
I told him that I ran away; nobody forced me to come; but two Indians
coaxed me and gave me my pinto pony.
He then told me that I might go. When I got back to our tepee mother
and Hanabi wanted to know what had happened, and I told them.
That night the council was continued in Washakie’s tepee. The War Chief
asked me some more questions. He wanted to know how the Indians treated
me, and why I ran away from home.
I told him that I had been treated just as well by the Indians as I
had ever been treated by the whites, and that I ran away because I was
tired of herding sheep alone. Besides, I wanted the pinto pony and the
only way I could get him was to go with the Indians, so I went.
“Have the Indians kept their promises with you?” the War Chief asked.
“They have done everything they said they would do,” I told him; “I
haven’t any fault to find with them.”
[Illustration: Shoshone War Chief’s tepee, from a photograph taken in
1861. The tepee is made of buffalo skins, and is possibly the identical
one in which the big council was held.
_Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution_]
Washakie then said that he had told the Indians they might offer me
the pony if I would come; but they were not to force me away from
home. “So when he came,” the chief continued, “we gave the squaw who
owned the pinto four colts for him. I gave her a yearling, mother gave
two others, and Morogonai gave one. We never told the boy that he
could have the pony; but we all understood that it belonged to him.
Afterwards I gave him another horse for breaking some colts for me.”
The War Chief asked me whether I would rather live with the white
people or the Indians. I told him I would sooner live with the Indians.
With that the council broke up and the Indians went to their various
tepees.
“What does all this mean?” I asked Washakie.
“You will know in the morning,” he replied.
“If they intend to take my pony away,” I said, “I will skip out in the
night.”
“They are not going to do that,” said my mother; “whenever you go, that
horse goes with you.”
We all went to bed that night wondering what would happen next day. It
was a long night for me, for I did not sleep much.
Morning came at last, and after breakfast the War Chief with several
other Indians came to our tepee. With them were the Pocatello Indians.
When they were all inside the tepee, Washakie told me that these
Indians had been down to the place where my people lived; that my
father said I had been stolen by the Indians; that he was raising a big
army to come and get me; and that he was going to kill every Indian he
could find. Washakie asked me what I thought about it. I told him that
it was not so.
“In the first place,” I said, “my people do not want to fight the
Indians; and besides, if my father had been coming after me he would
have come long before this. I don’t believe one word of it.”
Washakie was of the same opinion as I was.
Then one of Pocatello’s Indians said he had just come from Salt Lake
City and many people there had asked him whether he knew anything about
the boy that had been stolen from the whites. He said that all through
the white men’s towns they were getting ready to fight, and he knew
that they were coming to get me.
“I know they are not,” I said, “for I have heard my father say many
times that if any of his boys ran away he should never come home again;
besides, my father has an old Gosiute Indian living with him who knows
all about my running away.”
Washakie said that it did not look reasonable to him that they would
wait so long and then come to hunt the boy, especially at that time of
the year.
This made the Pocatello Indians angry. “All right,” they said; “believe
that white boy if you would rather than believe us; but if you get into
a fight with the white men, you need not ask us to help you.”
Washakie said that he was not going to have any trouble with the whites
if he could avoid it.
“No,” they said, “you are too big a coward to fight anything”; and off
they strutted as mad as hornets. As they went out they said to one of
our Indians that they would like to get that little white devil out in
the brush and they would soon have another white, curly-headed scalp to
dance around.
When the council met again that night, they did not have much to say;
they all appeared to be in a deep study. After a little while Washakie
said he thought it would be a good thing to send some of our Indians to
the white settlements to find out what was going on.
“That is the best thing to do,” said old Morogonai; “but who will go?”
“It will not be hard to get men enough to go,” said Washakie.
The War Chief said it would be better for the white boy to go himself
and end all the trouble; for if his folks were coming after him, that
would stop them and settle the dispute. Nearly all of the council
agreed with the War Chief.
Washakie asked me what I thought about it. I told him that I did not
know the way home and I would not go.
“If the council decides that it is the wisest plan for you to go,” said
the chief, “we will find a way for you to get home safe.” He then asked
each member of the council what he thought about it, and all were of
the opinion that it was the best thing to do.
Mother talked and cried a great deal. I do not remember all she said,
but I know that she begged them to send some one else. Washakie was
silent for a long time, then he said that I had better go; that he
would send two of his men with me to the nearest white town and then I
could get home myself.
“I want you to go home,” he said, “and when you get there, tell the
truth. Tell your father that you came to us of your own accord; and
then if you want to come back, we shall be glad to have you come and
live with us always.”
“All right,” I said, “I will go home if you want me to, but I will not
stay there.”
How mother did take on! It seemed as if it would break her poor old
heart, and Hanabi took it very hard, too. I told them not to feel bad,
for I would soon come back.
In a few days, I was to leave, so we began to get ready for the
journey. Hanabi and some other squaws set to work to make my clothes,
and they soon had enough to dress me in first-class Indian style. The
Indians gave me so many buffalo robes and buckskins that one horse
could not carry them; so Washakie said that I might have one of the
horses they had captured from the Crows.
When the two Indians that were to go with me said they were ready,
we packed up. I had in my pack seven buffalo robes, fifteen large
buckskins, and ten pairs of very fine moccasins. It was a bulky load,
but not very heavy. Just as I was leaving, the little boys gave me so
many arrows that I could not get them all in my quiver.
[Illustration: “She knew me the moment she saw me.”]
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HOMEWARD BOUND
When we started to leave the village, how my mother did cry! I tried to
comfort her by telling her not to feel bad, for I should soon be back.
Little did I think it would be the last time I should see her, for I
fully intended to return that fall.
We took plenty of dried meat with us to last us through the trip, and
away we went. On the fourth day, at noon, we came to a place on the
Bear River about twenty miles north of Brigham City, Utah. We stayed
there the rest of the day to give our horses a little rest. The two
Indians said that they would go no farther, for I could find the way
from there very well.
The next morning they helped me pack my horses and put me on the right
trail, telling me not to ride too fast, for I could get to the white
settlement long before night.
As I left them I said, “You may look for me back in a few days.”
“Don’t try to come back this fall,” they said, “for it is getting too
late to cross the mountains, and we may have a big snow at any time
now. It will take you six days to get home from here, and that will
make it too late for you to return. You had better stay home this
winter. The Indians will be there next summer. You can come back with
them.”
About noon I came to some warm springs. I thought it would be a good
idea to wash my face and hands as I had not done it very often for the
past two years. I saw that I had plenty of time, for the sun was high,
so I unpacked and staked my horses and went to work to give myself a
good scrubbing. I ran my fingers through my hair to get the snarls out,
but after all my fussing I could not see that I looked much better.
My hands were like an Indian’s and my costume was in the latest Indian
fashion. My leggings were trimmed with new red flannel, my shirt was
of antelope skins, and my frock of heavy buckskin, smoked to a nice
reddish hue, with beads of all colors in wide stripes down the breast
and on the shoulders, and fringes all around the bottom that reached
nearly to my knees. My cap was made of rawhide, with notches all around
the top, and looked like a crosscut saw turned upside down. It came to
a peak in front, and mother had put a crown in it with muskrat skin.
After I had scrubbed off all the dirt I could, I packed up and started
again. I could see the little town long before I came to it. At the
first house I reached a man had just driven up with a load of hay. When
I asked him where I could find a place to camp, he told me to stay at
his place if I wanted to, that he had plenty of hay, and I was welcome,
so I took him at his word. Unpacking my horses I tied them under the
shed and fed them. By that time the man came out and said that supper
was ready. I told him that I had plenty to eat and would rather not go
in.
“Come and eat with me,” he insisted, and taking me by the hand, he led
me into the house.
The women and children stared at me so hard that I felt uncomfortable.
The children would look at me, then turn to one another and laugh.
“I suppose you would like to wash before you eat,” said the lady. She
gave me some water and soap. It was the first soap I had seen for two
years. After I had washed, she told me to sit down at the table.
“Don’t you take off your hat when you eat?” the man asked.
“No,” I said.
“Will you please take it off here?”
I pulled it off.
They had bread and butter and potatoes and gravy and milk--the first I
had seen since I left home. But I was mighty glad when I got away from
that table.
I went out and watered my horses and gave them some more hay. By this
time it was dark, so I made my bed and turned in. Just as I was getting
into bed, I saw this man go down town and pretty soon he came back
with three more men. I saw them go into the house. Shortly afterwards
he came out and said that the bishop was in the house and would like
to have a talk with me. I told him that I did not want to talk; but he
kept at me until I got up and went into the house.
The bishop said his name was Nichols, or something like that; then he
added, “I see by your dress that you have been with the Indians.”
I told him that I had lived with them for a year or two.
He said that he had read in the papers about a little boy running away
with the Indians, and he thought I might be that boy.
“Maybe I am,” I said.
“To what tribe do you belong?”
“Washakie’s tribe.”
“I have heard,” he said, “that Washakie is a chief among the Shoshones
and that his tribe is friendly to the white people. What do you know
about them?”
“Washakie’s band,” I replied, “are good Indians. I have heard the chief
say many times that he was a friend to the people of Utah, that he had
seen their big chief, who was a very good ‘tibo.’”
“What is that?” he asked.
“Oh, I forgot I was talking to white men,” I said; “‘tibo’ means
friend.”
I told them that he had no need to fear Washakie’s tribe, but that old
Pocatello had drawn away some of Washakie’s Indians, and that they were
bad Indians, who were doing everything against the whites they could.
Washakie had told me they were killing the emigrants and stealing their
horses and burning their wagons.
Well, this bishop talked and talked, and asked me ten thousand
questions, it seemed to me. Finally the woman took pity on me and said,
“Do let the poor boy rest.”
I told them I had always been in bed by dark and that I felt pretty
tired.
“Well,” said the bishop, “you may go to bed now, and I will see you in
the morning. You had better come down to my house and stay all day. I
should like very much to have Brother Snow talk with you.”
I didn’t say anything, but I thought that neither Snow nor rain would
catch me in that place another day, so I was up by the peep of day and
away I went. I traveled seven or eight miles and stopped by some hot
springs, unpacked my horses, and got me something to eat. I thought
that I would not stop in any more houses where bishops could get hold
of me and talk me to death.
After my horses had fed, I started on my way again, and after traveling
about ten miles more, I came to a place called Ogden. As I was going
along the main street, a man standing by a store stopped me and began
talking Indian to me. He asked me where I had been. I told him. While
we were talking, several more men came up and one of them asked me
where I was going to camp that night. I told him that I did not know,
but that I would go on down the road a piece until I found grass and
water. He asked me to put my horses in his corral and give them all the
hay they could eat.
“No,” I said, “I would rather go on.”
“No,” he said, “you must stop here tonight.” With that he took the rope
out of my hands and let my horses into his corral. I followed him, and
when I had unpacked I asked him if he was a bishop. He said he was. I
told him I thought so.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you talk so much.”
He laughed and said that I must not mind that, for they seldom saw a
person like me, and they wanted to find out all they could about the
Indians.
After a while he invited me in to supper. I did not want to go, but he
would have his way, so I went in with him. I think he said his name was
West.
This Bishop West, if that was his name, asked me a good many questions,
but he said he would not weary me by talking too long. I was in bed
soon after dark that night. I intended to get off early the next
morning, and give them the slip as before; but just as I was packing
up, the bishop came out and said, “Hold on there, you are not going
before breakfast.”
I told him that I had plenty to eat with me; but he insisted that I
take breakfast with him, and I had to stay. He asked me a great many
more questions, but he was very nice about it. I felt glad to talk with
him, for he was so kind and good to me.
[Illustration: Jordan River and Wasatch Mountains, Salt Lake Valley,
Utah. The Pony Express and Overland Stage road ran through this valley.]
He said that I would be a very useful man, if I was treated right.
He asked me whether I had been to school much, and he was very much
surprised when I told him that I had never attended school a day in
my life. He said that I must go to school, and if I lived near him he
would see that I did go. As I started away he asked me to go and see
Governor Young when I got to Salt Lake; but I thought I did not want to
do it. I was a young boy then and did not realize the importance of his
request.
That day I reached a place called Farmington. Just as I was nearing
town, I saw some boys driving cows.
“Where can I camp tonight?” I asked them.
“Up on the mountain if you want to,” said one of them.
“You think you are pretty smart,” I said.
“Just as smart as you, Mr. Injun,” he replied; “if you don’t believe
it, just get off that buzzard head of a horse and I’ll show you.”
I jumped off and he ran. I got on my horse and started after them, but
they scrambled through the fence and ran away through the fields. I
went on through the town, and after getting permission from the owner,
camped in his field, and I was not bothered with any questions that
night.
The next morning I was off pretty early and reached Salt Lake City. I
did not stay there, however, but went on through and stopped at the
Jordan River bridge for noon. This was a familiar road to me now, for I
had been in the city several times before. That afternoon I journeyed
on to what we called Black Rock and camped that night at the southern
end of Great Salt Lake. I was now within a short day’s ride of home. I
could hardly stay there till morning, I was so anxious now to get home.
Just as I was making camp, a team drove up with three people in the
wagon. I knew them. They were John Zundel, his sister Julia, and Jane
Branden, our nearest neighbors, but they did not know me at first.
I had a fire and was broiling a rabbit I had killed, when Julia came up
and tried to get a good look at me, but I kept my face turned from her
as much as I could. Finally she got a glimpse of my face and went to
the wagon. I heard her say to Jane,
“That is the whitest Indian I ever saw, and he has blue eyes.”
“I’ll bet a dollar it is Nick Wilson,” said Jane.
They came over where I was and Jane said, “Look up here, young man, and
let us see you.”
I let them take a look at me.
“I knew it was you, you little scamp!” she said, taking hold of me and
shaking me and patting me on the back.
“I’ve a good notion to flog you,” she went on. “Your poor mother has
worried herself nearly to death about you.”
Morning came at last, and I packed up in a hurry to get home. I did not
stop this time until I reached it.
As I rode up, two of my little sisters, who were playing by the side
of the house, ran in and told mother that an Indian was out there. She
came to the door, and she knew me the moment she saw me. I cannot tell
you just what passed the next hour, but they were all happy to have me
back safe at home again.
I had forgotten all about my horses in the joy of the meeting. When I
finally went out to unpack them, the folks all followed me and mother
asked, “Where did you get all of those horses? Did you take them from
the Indians and run away?”
I told her that they were mine, that I had not run away from the
Indians as I had from her. After that I put my ponies in the field, and
answering their eager questions, I told them all about my two years
among the Indians.
[Illustration: “Away she went, through the bars and down the street.”]
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE YEAR OF THE MOVE
Soon after I reached home, another call was made for men to go out and
stop the soldiers from entering the territory. I wanted to go, but my
father would not let me. I said that I could shoot as well with my bow
and arrows as they could with their old flintlock guns, but they said I
was too young, so my older brother went, and I let him have one of my
buffalo robes and my roan pony.
All of the grain was not out of the fields yet and all of the men had
gone off to the “Echo Canyon War,” as it was called, except a few very
old men who could not do much work. The women and little boys could be
seen every day out in the fields hauling grain and stacking it. There
would be about half a dozen women to each team and a little boy driving
the oxen. I have seen as many as fifteen to twenty teams at a time
out in the big public field hauling grain, and just as many women and
children as could get around the wagons. They seemed happy as larks,
for they were singing bravely.
After the grain was hauled it was threshed. An old man by the name of
Baker, who could just get around by the aid of two walking-sticks,
took charge of the threshing machine. It was not much like the steam
threshers of these days. This one had a cylinder fixed in a big box,
and it was made to turn by horse power, but we had to use ox power.
Old “Daddy Baker” and as many women as could get around the machine
began to do the threshing. We put on four yoke of oxen to run the old
“chaff-piler,” as we called it.
The oldest boys were set to pitching the grain to the old machine. One
of the other boys started up the cattle and away she went. I was to do
the feeding. At first the boys pitched the grain so fast that I had to
shove three or four bundles at a time into the mouth of the machine.
This choked the old thing, and caused the belt to break, and it took
half an hour to patch up and get going again.
The straw and chaff came out together. About fifteen women with rakes
would string out and rake the straw along until they left the grain
behind, then about forty children would stack the straw. After we
threshed an hour or two we would stop and “cave up,” as we called it.
That meant to push the grain and chaff in a pile at one side. Then we
would go on again.
When we had finished Brother Martendale’s job, we moved over to Brother
Pumpswoggle’s place, and after that we threshed for some other brother
until all the grain was done.
After the threshing was done, we took the old-fashioned fanning mill
and went the rounds to clean the chaff from the grain. Some of the
women would take turns turning the old thing, while others would take
milk pans and buckets and put grain into the hopper. The chaff would
fly one way and the grain go another. At best we could thresh only
about one hundred fifty bushels a day, and we had about twenty thousand
bushels to thresh, so it looked a very discouraging task, with winter
so near.
But as luck would have it, some of the men came in with a large band of
mules and horses they had taken from the soldiers and four of the men
were left home to help do the threshing. “Lonzo” Mecham took charge of
the work, and we used some of the captured mules to help out, so the
threshing went on much faster. They were good mules.
During all of that fall the women took the part of men as well as
women. They hauled wood from the mountains, dug potatoes, and gathered
in all of the other products from the gardens and farms. Many of the
poor mothers were hardly able to be out, but they took their double
part bravely while their fathers, brothers and sons were off in the
mountains defending their homes and families. They were poorly dressed,
too, for the cold weather.
Most of the people were very poor. The Indians and grasshoppers and
crickets had kept them down so that it was hard at best to make a
living, and now an army was coming, they feared, to burn and kill.
The soldiers probably would have made sad work, if Lot Smith had not
stopped them by burning their wagon trains full of supplies out on the
Big Sandy.[4] This held them off long enough to enable the officers of
the government to meet with the leaders of the state and come to an
understanding; the war was happily prevented.
[4] A branch of the Green River, in Wyoming.
During the winter many of the men came home. Poor though we were we had
happy times. They had social gatherings at which they sang and danced
and played games to while away the wintry evenings. Sometimes, to pay
the fiddler, the people took squash or wheat or carrots. There was
little money in the country.
[Illustration: Echo Canyon, Utah. The Overland Trail ran through this
pass.]
I have said that the people were very poor. They were poor in
furniture, bedding, clothing, but generally they had enough to eat, and
they were gradually getting cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens to help
out. Their furniture and dishes, however, had been broken and used up
in their long journey across the plains and it was hard to get more.
Sometimes a coat or a dress would be patched so many times and with
so many different kinds of cloth that it was difficult to tell which
piece of cloth it had been made of in the first place.