and the government. The leaders were uncertain how the trouble would
end, so they ordered the settlers to abandon their homes for the time
being and move south. This was a trying thing to do. The crops were
all in when the order came to move. A guard was left to take care of
what was left behind, and if it came to the worst, they were to burn
everything that might be useful to the army. My father with his family
and most of our neighbors moved down to Spanish Fork, Utah. Here we
stayed for further orders from the authorities.
To make this move from their homes, the people had to use any kind of
outfit they could get together. Everything from a wheelbarrow to an
eight-mule team could be seen along the roads. An old wagon with a
cow and a horse hitched up together was a common sight. Some had good
buggies, others an old ox hitched between the shafts of a rickety old
two-wheeled cart. Some of the women led the family cows with their
bedding and a little food packed on their backs. Some were rich and
many were poor, but they all were traveling the same road, and all
appeared to be happy, and none of them very badly scared.
By this time I had traded my Crow Indian pony for a white man’s saddle
and a two-year-old heifer. I wanted to go back to live with Washakie
and my dear old Indian mother, but I did not care to do so until I
found out what the army was going to do.
We had not been in Spanish Fork long before some Spaniards from
California brought in a band of wild horses to trade for cattle. A good
many people had gathered around the corral to see the mustangs. While
sitting on the corral fence, I saw a little black three-year-old mare
that took my fancy. I asked the man what he would take for her.
[Illustration: Remains of levee built by Utah troops to flood a canyon
so as to impede the march of Johnston’s army.]
“She is worth sixty dollars,” he said, “but if you will jump off that
fence on to her back and ride her, you may have her for nothing.”
“That is a whack,” I said; “I’ll do it.”
He told me to wait until they were ready to turn the horses out. It was
not long before he said, “Now we are ready to see the fun.” He had no
idea that I would do it. He thought the colt would throw me off at the
first jump, and they would have a good laugh on my account.
They let down the bars and drove the horses around so that the black
came near enough for me to jump off the fence to her back. As she came
close I made the leap and landed fairly. Away she went out through the
bars and down the street. Every dog in the place seemed to be after us.
We passed over the hill and headed towards Pond Town. Then we circled
to the west towards Goshen. The band of horses we started with were
soon left way behind and we ran away from all the dogs.
Some one ran over and told my folks that I was on a wild horse, that it
was running away and I would be killed. Mother was not much worried,
for she knew I had been on wild horses before. My brother, however,
jumped on my pinto pony and struck out after me. When he finally caught
up, the colt I had been riding had run herself down, and had stopped.
He rode up and handed me a rope, which I put around the mare’s neck,
and then got off to let her rest. After a while I mounted her again and
with my brother drove her back to town. The stranger kept his word. I
had won the black mare.
When we got back, all of the men that had seen us start off came up to
look at us. Among them was a Mr. Faust, “Doc Faust,” they called him.
He said that I beat all the boys at riding he ever saw; that he had a
good many horses on his ranch he wanted broken and would give me fifty
dollars a month to come and do it for him. When I told mother about it,
she would not give her consent, for my father was very sick and she was
afraid he would not live much longer.
We stayed in the neighborhood of Spanish Fork until about the first of
August, then word came that we could go back home. The leaders had come
to a peaceful agreement with the government.
We started back to our homes with a hurrah! and when we reached them,
we all went to work with a will. I never saw larger crops than we
raised that year. Wheat ran from fifty to seventy-five bushels to
the acre. It was the same all through the territory. Best of all we
received the highest prices for it. The army bought all the grain, hay,
straw, and other products that we had to sell.
All of our harvesting had to be done by hand, for there were no reaping
machines in those days. We hired Owen Baston to cradle our grain,
and my brother and I bound it. That fall, after our wheat was all
harvested, my father died.
After the death of father, my brother and I did not get along very
well together. He was a hard worker. I had never done much work and it
went rather hard with me. Riding horses, I thought, was more fun than
slaving on the farm, so I decided to go to Mr. Faust’s ranch and help
him break his bronchos. After that I intended to go back to live with
Washakie.
Mr. Faust lived at the south end of Rush Valley, about sixty miles
southwest of Salt Lake. When I got to his ranch he was very glad to see
me.
“We will have that old outlaw of a horse brought to time now,” he said
to his other riders. “Here is the boy that can ride him.”
I told him that I was not so sure of that, for I had never ridden a bad
horse for more than a year.
“Bad,” he said, “what do you call jumping off a fence on to the back of
a wild mustang?”
“Oh, she wasn’t a bad animal to ride,” I said; “she did nothing but
run.”
“My horses are not bad to break,” he went on, “but one of them has
thrown two or three of the boys, and it has made him mean. I want him
broken, for he is about as good a horse as I have, and I know you can
break him.”
The next morning one of Mr. Faust’s best riders and I went out to bring
in the band the outlaw was with. This man told me that if I was not a
very good rider I had better keep off that horse, or he would kill me.
I told him that I did not know much about riding, but I was not afraid
to try him. We brought in the band and roped the outlaw.
[Illustration: Part of fortifications built by Utah troops to hold back
Johnston’s army.]
Mr. Faust asked me whether I thought I could ride him. I was ready to
try. The man who had gone with me tried to get Mr. Faust not to let me
do it, for he said I might be killed. I began to think he was afraid
I should prove the better rider, for the outlaw had pitched him off
several times.
When things were ready, I mounted the broncho. He went off very
peaceably for a little way, and I thought that they were making a fool
of me; but pretty soon the old boy turned loose, and he fairly made
my neck pop. He gave me the hardest bucking I ever had; but he did it
straight ahead. He did not whirl as some horses do, so I stayed with
him all right.
When he stopped bucking, I sent him through for ten miles about as fast
as he ever went, and when I got back to the ranch I rode up the corral
where the man was saddling another horse.
Standing up in my saddle, I said, “Do you call this a bad horse? If you
do you don’t know what a bad horse is.”
The fellow did not like me very much after that. I got along very well
with the old outlaw; but I had to give him some very hard rides before
he acknowledged me his master.
I had a number of similar experiences in taming horses which were
hard to manage, and although I did not come out without a scratch
or a bruise, I succeeded in making almost any horse I tried to ride
understand that I was his master. However, I would not advise a boy who
has not a particular faculty for riding unmanageable horses to engage
in the sport on the strength of my remarks here. It takes quite a knack
to establish the right understanding between a horse and a man. Some
persons--women as well as men--seem to have this gift naturally, and
without any idea of boasting I may say that I think I had it more than
most of the boys in our part of the country.
One reason, perhaps, why I got along so well with them was that ever
since I was a little boy I have loved horses and liked to be around
them, thinking of them more as human beings than mere dumb beasts. It
was the same way, I may add, with dogs; and horses and dogs know when
a boy or a man has this feeling, and it makes a difference even in the
toughest of them as to how they will treat you.
I am sorry that I cannot stop and make it a part of my story to tell
about some more of my adventures in taming wild horses. But possibly
this is just as well, as I am afraid true stories might not prove
very interesting beside some which have been printed in papers and
magazines, in which I think the writers must have drawn largely upon
their imagination in order to make thrilling “yarns.”
[Illustration: “Their leader grabbed my horse’s rein.”]
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE PONY EXPRESS
About the time I had decided to go back to my Indian friends, word came
that the Pony Express was to be started, and Mr. Faust induced me to
stay and be one of the pony riders. I sold my roan pony to a sergeant
in Camp Floyd for seventy-five dollars and my little black mare for a
hundred dollars. Part of this money I gave to mother, and the rest I
used to buy some clothes.
A great “powwow” was going on about the Pony Express coming through the
country. The company had begun to build its roads and stations. These
stations were about ten miles apart. They were placed as near to a
spring, or other watering place, as possible. There were two kinds of
them, the “home station” and the “way station.” At the way stations,
the riders changed horses; at the home stations, which were about fifty
miles from each other, the riders were changed; and there they ate
their meals and slept.
Finally the time came for the express horses to be distributed along
the line, and the station keepers and riders were sent to the various
stations. Mr. Faust and Major Howard Egan went on my bond, and I was
sent out west into Nevada to a station called Ruby Valley. This was
a “home station.” It was kept by William Smith. Samuel Lee was his
hostler.
When we were hired to ride the express, we had to go before a justice
of the peace and swear we would be at our post at all times, and not go
farther than one hundred yards from the station except when carrying
the mail. When we started out we were not to turn back, no matter what
happened, until we had delivered the mail at the next station. We must
be ready to start back at a half minute’s notice, day or night, rain or
shine, Indians or no Indians.
Our saddles, which were all provided by the company, had nothing to
them but the bare tree, stirrups, and cinch. Two large pieces of
leather about sixteen inches wide by twenty-four long were laced
together with a strong leather string thrown over the saddle. Fastened
to these were four pockets, two in front and two behind; these hung on
each side of the saddle. The two hind ones were the largest. The one
in front on the left side was called the “way pocket.” All of these
pockets were locked with small padlocks and each home station keeper
had a key to the “way pocket.” When the express arrived at the home
station, the keeper would unlock the “way pocket” and if there were
any letters for the boys between the home stations, the rider would
distribute them as he went along. There was also a card in the way
pocket that the station keeper would take out and write on it the time
the express arrived and left his station. If the express was behind
time, he would tell the rider how much time he had to make up.
Well, the time came that we had to start. On the afternoon of April 3,
1860, at a signal cannon shot, a pony rider left St. Joseph, Missouri;
and the same moment another left Sacramento, California--one speeding
west, the other east over plains and mountains and desert. Night and
day the race was kept up by the different riders and their swift horses
until the mail was carried through. Then they turned and dashed back
over the same trail again. Each man would make about fifty miles a day,
changing horses four or five times to do it.
Not many riders could stand the long, fast riding at first, but after
about two weeks they would get hardened to it.
At first the rider would be charged up with the saddle he was riding,
and his first wages were kept back for it. If he had no revolver, and
had to get one from the company, that would add another heavy expense
to be deducted from his wages. Some of the boys were killed by the
Indians before they had paid for these things. Our pay was too small
for the hard work and the dangers we went through.
Everything went along first rate for a while, but after about six or
eight months of that work, the big, fine horses began to play out, and
then the company bought up a lot of wild horses from California, strung
them along the road and put the best riders to breaking them.
Peter Neece, our home station keeper, was a big, strong man, and a
good rider. He was put to breaking some of these mustangs for the boys
on his beat. After he had ridden one of them a time or two, he would
turn the half-broken, wild things over to the express boys to ride.
Generally, when a hostler could lead them into and out of the stable
without getting his head kicked off, the bronchos were considered
broken. Very likely they had been handled just enough to make them
mean. I found it to be so with most of the horses they gave me to ride.
I was not a bit afraid of the Indians at first; but when the boys began
to get shot at and killed by the skulking savages, I might not have
been afraid, but I was pretty badly scared just the same.
At one time my home station was at Shell Creek. I rode from there to
Deep Creek. One day the Indians killed a rider out on the desert, and
when I was to meet him at Deep Creek, he was not there. I had to keep
right on until I met him. It was not until I reached the next station,
Willow Creek, that I found out he had been killed. My horse was about
jaded by this time, so I had to stay there and let him rest. I should
have had to start back that night if the Indians had not come upon us.
About four o’clock that afternoon, seven Indians rode up to the station
and asked for something to eat. Neece, the station keeper, picked up a
sack holding about twenty pounds of flour and offered it to them. They
demanded a sack of flour apiece. He threw it back into the house and
told them to clear out, that he would not give them anything.
This made them angry, and as they passed a shed about five rods from
the house they each shot an arrow into a poor old lame cow, that
happened to be standing under a shed. When Neece saw that, he jerked
out his pistol and commenced shooting at them. He killed two of the
Indians and the rest ran.
“Now, boys,” he said, “we are in for a hot time tonight. There’s a
bunch of about thirty of the red rascals up the canyon, and they will
be on us as soon as it gets dark. We’ll have to fight.”
A man by the name of Lynch was with us at the time. He had boasted
a good deal about what he would do if the Indians attacked him. We
thought he was a kind of desperado. I felt pretty safe until he
weakened and began to cry, then I wanted all of us to get on our horses
and skip for the next station; but Pete said: “No; we will load up all
of our old guns and get ready for them when they come. There are only
four of us; but we can stand off the whole bunch of them.”
[Illustration: An aged Indian of the Nevada desert, of Pony Express
days, with his bow and arrows.
_Bur. of Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution_]
Just a little before dark we could see a big dust over towards the
mouth of the canyon about six miles from the station. We knew they
were coming. Neece thought it would be a good thing to go out from the
station a hundred yards or so and surprise them as they came up. When
we got there he had us lie down a little way apart.
“Now,” he said, “when you fire, jump to one side, so if they shoot at
the blaze of your gun, you will not be there.”
You bet I lay close to the ground. Pretty soon we heard the thumping
of their horses’ hoofs. It seemed to me there were hundreds of them.
And such yells as they let out, I never heard before. They were coming
straight for us, and I thought they were going to run right over us. It
was sandy where we lay, with little humps here and there and scrubby
greasewood growing on the humps.
When the Indians got close enough, Pete shot and jumped away to one
side. I had two pistols, one in each hand, cocked and ready to pull the
trigger, and was crawling on my elbows and knees. Each time he would
shoot I saw him jump. Soon they were all shooting but me. I got so
excited that I forgot to fire, but I kept jumping.
After I had jumped a good many times, I happened to land in a little
wash, or ravine, that the water had made. My back came up nearly level
with the top of the banks. Anyway I pressed myself down in it. I was
badly scared. My heart was beating like a triphammer.
As I lay there, the shooting ceased. After a while I raised my head
and looked off towards the desert. Those humps of sand covered with
greasewood looked exactly like Indians on horses, and I could see
several of them near the wash. I crouched down again and lay there a
long time; it seemed hours.
Finally everything was so still I decided to go and see whether my
horse was where I had staked him. If he was, I intended to jump on him
and strike back for the Deep Creek station, and tell them that the boys
were killed; but as I went crawling around the house on my elbows and
knees with my revolvers ready to shoot, I saw a light shining through
the cracks. It must be full of Indians, I thought; and I lay there
quietly to watch what they were doing.
Suddenly I heard one of the men a little distance from the house say,
“Did you find anything of him?”
Another answered: “No, I guess he is gone.”
I knew then it was the boys. When I heard them go into the house and
shut the door, I slipped up and peeped through the cracks. The three of
them were in there all right. I was almost too ashamed to go in; but I
finally went around and opened the door.
“Hello!” Neece called out; “here he is! How far did you chase them,
Nick? I knew you would stay with them.”
Several Indians had been killed and the rest of the bunch had run when
the surprise attack was made on them. They did not bother us any more
just then, but they got plenty of revenge later. The next morning I
went back to Deep Creek.
Shortly after this I was making my ride through one of the canyons
on the trail when suddenly four Indians jumped out of the rocks and
brush into the road just ahead of me. I whirled my pony and started to
run back, when I found three other Indians standing in the trail. I
couldn’t climb the sides of the canyon; the devils had me trapped, and
they began to close in on me with their bows and arrows ready. Only one
of them had a gun.
I did not know what else to do, so I sat still on my horse. As they
came up I recognized old Tabby among them. This gave me some hope.
Their leader, a one-eyed, mean-looking old rascal, grabbed my horse’s
rein, and ordered me to get off. I tried to get old Tabby’s eye, but he
wouldn’t look my way nor speak to me. Two Indians led my horse about
a hundred yards up the canyon and held it there, while the one-eyed
Indian talked to me.
He said I had no right to cross their country. The land belonged to the
Indians, and they were going to drive the white men out of it. He took
his ramrod out of his old gun and marked a trail in the road. “We will
burn the stations, here and here and here,” he went on, jabbing the rod
in the dirt. “And we will kill the pony men.”
With this threat he left me standing in the road, while he, with old
Tabby and the rest, walked away into the brush and began to talk. I
could not hear what they were saying. I was badly scared. Then they
made a fire.
[Illustration: “Joe Dugout’s” well on old Pony Express trail, about ten
miles northeast of Camp Floyd. “Joe” kept a “way station” here for the
express.]
My soul! I thought. Are they going to burn me? I was just about to make
a dash for the two Indians and fight for my horse; but that would have
been a fool thing to do.
After a while one of the Indians came up and asked me if I had any
tobacco. I gave him all I had. That made things look a little better.
They had a smoke and then Old Tabby came to talk with me.
The Indians, he said, wanted to kill me, but he would not agree to it.
My father, he said, was his good friend. But I must turn back and never
carry the mail there again; for if they caught me they would surely
kill me next time.
“But this mail’s got to go through,” I said. “Let me take it this time
and I will not ride here again.”
When I had made this promise, they let me go. I did not carry the mail
over there any more; but I was sent further west, about three hundred
miles, to ride from Carson Sink to Fort Churchill. The distance was
about seventy-five miles and was a very hard ride, for the horses as
well as for me, because much of the trail led through deep sand. Some
things were not so bad, however; I had no mountains to cross, and the
Indians were more friendly here.
East of my beat along Egan Canyon, Shell Creek, and Deep Creek, they
had begun to be very ugly, threatening to burn the stations and kill
the people, and the following spring they did break out in dead
earnest. Some of the stations were burned and one of the riders was
killed. That spring I was changed back into Major Egan’s division and
rode from Shell Creek to Ruby Valley.
Things grew worse that summer. More stations were burned, some hostlers
and riders were killed, and I got very badly wounded. It happened this
way. I had been taking some horses to Antelope Station, and on my way
back, I made a stop at Spring Valley Station. When I got there, the two
boys that looked after the station were out on the wood pile playing
cards. They asked me to stay and have dinner. I got my horse and
started him towards the station, but instead of going into the stable
he went behind it where some other horses were grazing.
Pretty soon we saw the horses going across the meadow towards the
cedars with two Indians behind them. We started after them full tilt
and gained on them a little. As we ran I fired three shots at them from
my revolver, but they were too far off for me to hit them. They reached
the cedars a little before we did.
I was ahead of the other two boys, and as I ran around a large cedar
one of the Indians shot me in the head with a flint-tipped arrow. It
struck me about two inches above the left eye. The two boys were on the
other side of the tree. Seeing the Indians run, they came around to
find me lying on the ground with the arrow sticking in my head. They
tried to pull the arrow out, but the shaft came away and left the flint
in my head. Thinking that I would surely die, they rolled me under a
tree and started for the next station as fast as they could go. There
they got a few men and came back the next morning to bury me; but when
they got to me and found that I was still alive, they thought they
would not bury me just then.
They carried me to a station called Cedar Wells, and sent to Ruby
Valley for a doctor. When he came, he took the spike out of my head
and told the boys to keep a wet rag on the wound, as that was all they
could do for me.
I lay there for six days, when Major Egan happened to come along.
Seeing that I was still alive, he sent for the doctor again. When the
doctor came and saw I was no worse, he began to do something for me.
But I knew nothing of all this. For eighteen days I lay unconscious.
Then I began to get better fast, and it was not long before I was
riding again.
If Mr. Egan had not happened along when he did, I think I should not
be here now telling about it. But oh, I have suffered with my head at
times since then!
The Indians kept getting worse. They began to attack and murder
emigrants, and they did a lot of damage to the express line by burning
stations, killing the riders, and running off with the horses. It
became harder to get riders to carry the mail; for every one that could
leave would do so, and the agents found it difficult to find others to
take the dangerous job. They raised the wages from forty dollars to
sixty per month, but men did not want to risk their lives for even that
price.
Between Deep Creek and Shell Creek was what we called “Eight-mile
station.” It was kept by an old man, and he had two young emigrant boys
to help him. Their mother had died of the cholera, east of Salt Lake
City, and their father had been shot by the Indians farther along the
trail west. He died when they reached Deep Creek, leaving these two
boys with the station keeper. Before he passed away he gave this keeper
five hundred dollars, a span of big mules, and a new wagon if he would
send the boys back to Missouri where the family had lived.
As it was too late for them to make the trip that fall, the boys were
to pass the winter at Deep Creek. The old keeper of the “Eight-mile
station” could not do the work very well, so the older of the two boys
was sent there to help him. An emigrant train came along and the old
man slipped away with it, leaving the boy to take care of the station
alone. It was hard to get men to stay at this station when the Indians
began to get mean. The boy wanted to stay with it, so they let him do
it; and his brother was sent out to help him.