DISPUTED EMPIRE
To Santa Fe, seven hundred and fifty miles ahead--with but one white
settlement in all the distance--lumbered the caravan. There were fifteen
wagons, fifty men, and more than three times that many animals. Before
them stretched the undulating prairies, waving with deep grass; behind
wound the tail of the caravan. Above, the skies were richly blue,
gorgeous with vast white clouds.
Four nights on the plains, under the stars, listening about the camp
fire to talk of trader and trapper. Steven was filled with tales of the
Trail, and of the fortunes that lay already mined and minted over the
far mountains--theirs for the journeying after. Seated now in the lead
wagon beside St. Vrain, Steven wondered if in all that vast wilderness
of land there could be other living beings than the fifty men and near
two hundred animals of their caravan.
“Ha! you think not,” said the Frenchman, chatting now in French, now in
English. “In this land”--he swept his hand about the horizon--“live many
great nations of red men--Kaw, Kansas, Pawnee, Arapahoe, Kiowa,
Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne. Many tribes, two to ten thousand strong.” It
was the fur-traders, St. Vrain remarked with pride, who had taught the
Indians to need white men’s goods--calico, whisky, looking-glasses, and
gunpowder.
“Not so many people in Santa Fe,” said St. Vrain, “just about two
thousand souls, but, _mon Dieu!_ there were near fifty thousand in the
state, all told--Mexicans and Pueblo Indians--and that was worth risking
something for. The Spaniards had been shipping everything but the
foodstuffs of the land up from Mexico for almost three hundred years.
And they have further to come than we. What could be easier than this?”
“It is wonderful,” Steven agreed, “yet I wonder if those new
steam-driven engines which they ran on a track in Maryland last winter
will not be crossing this plain some day. Think, they could pull all
this freight without any effort at all.”
“I doubt if ever,” St. Vrain shook his head skeptically. “They could
_never_ lay the track, and could make but little better time. We’ve come
fast. We’ll be nooning at One-hundred-and-ten-mile creek. Day before
yesterday I showed you where the Oregon Trail branched off; now the way
lies straight ahead till we strike the Arkansas at the Bend. Your
Senator Benton, and President Monroe, too, have been good friends to the
traders, getting the old Trail surveyed. This is the way lad, that the
first fellows who found that country yonder traveled. They followed the
sunset, the Spaniards, till they struck a river flowing from the west,
the Arkansas. And that’s the way the first traders, La Lande and
Pursley, came twenty-five years ago; they’re still living in Santa Fe,
doing business. And Captain Pike, exploring for the United States--I’ll
show you a great peak named after him when we reach the mountains. But
poor Pike got onto Mexican territory and built him a winter fort,
thinking it was the United States, and they threw him into prison in
Santa Fe as a spy. Lots of those who came after him met the same fate;
and since they blazed the way many traders have come.
“I’ve heard it said out yonder”--the colonel nodded towards the
sunset--“that those early Spaniards thought they were going to find
cities with streets paved with gold! Seven of them!” The fat Frenchman
threw back his head and laughed appreciatively. “But the gold is in the
pocket, not in the street; and it’s _silver_, bar and bullion and minted
coin.” He slapped his thigh, roaring heartily. “That is what the trader
finds in honest trade where the Spaniard failed with all his bloodshed.
Yet do you know, they hate us like pizen! Many a man who found his way
across this trackless plain and through the mountain passes wasn’t able
to find his way back. Rotted in Mexican jails like McKnight and his
party back in 1812, that lay for ten years in Chihuahua carcels, their
goods confiscate; _mais oui!_”
“How did this Pursley happen to be allowed to live in Santa Fe
unmolested?” asked Steven, curiously, a trifle uneasy at such a record.
“They wouldn’t let him leave. He knows where free gold lies thick in
those mountains,” the colonel replied. “He won’t tell where and they
wouldn’t let him get away. They always hope to find out where. Some day
he may tell and there’ll be a trail broader than this worn to the
diggings, mark me.”
The colonel flecked the backs of his oxen to speed their measured
pacing. “My countree she give up an empire here,” he said at length in
English. “Two hundred year she been here, up and down the Mississip.
England push down from the Great Lakes, from the Hudson Bay, but she
can’t push the _voyageur_ off the rivers and _lacs_. Those Spanish they
lie safe behind those mountains, like the dog in the mange; cannot hold
this land and don’t want anyone else to. The Mexican, and now the Texan
South, they get as bad as the Indian every year now. Don’t want traders
to pass through Texas.
“But two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of goods have been
carried over this trail this year, my lad.” The colonel nodded
impressively. “I talk with all the traders who buy for forts and with
fur-traders as well. And that is not all. Colonel Bent tells me that
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of trade has been taken
in to Santa Fe from Mexico this year from everywhere. For this reason I
myself and Charles Bent have made our move to Taos this year. Colonel
Bent stays on the Arkansas. Too bad there is no river to Santa Fe. See
how many trading stations and forts already on the Oklahoma.
“But come, I see you are more interested in stories of adventure. Is it
not so? You shall have enough of it before you have finished.” Steven’s
eyes lit with delight. “Last year a company of young men from Franklin,
Missouri,” the colonel continued, “reached Santa Fe, sold their goods,
and months later came staggering back to Independence on foot, almost
dead. They’d been attacked almost from the moment they left Santa Fe,
their mules stampeded off. They had finally to hide nearly all the money
they’d made, ten thousand dollars silver--cached it on Chouteau’s island
on the border.
“Will they go back for the money? I bet you _que oui_! Some of them are
with that caravan ahead with Bent. Major Riley will guard them to the
cache. Oh, you’ll have adventure aplenty my lad.”
“Tonight I stand guard for the first time”--Steven was hugely
pleased--“but everything has been very quiet so far, Colonel.”
“Let us hope it will continue to be so,” replied St. Vrain, fervently,
“as we have no military escort. We’re but four days out and there is a
six weeks’ journey at least before us. Do you see that dark streak
yonder on the horizon? That’s buffalo, a hundred herds, likely.”
To Steven the endless, treeless prairie stretching away before them held
all the lure of the sea for the sailor. His eager eyes looked over its
waves, anticipating what lay beyond. A natural road, surveyed five years
before as far as the Mexican border. But through the mountains beyond,
where there were no roads--that was where the survey was needed; where
many a good man was killed from ambush in some narrow canyon.
Great clouds were massing to the south and rolling up into the sky,
their fleecy whiteness shadowed by heavy, rain-filled masses. The
_mayordomo_ rode forward from the rear to consult with the colonel. They
decided that, with so heavy a storm brewing, it would be well to halt
and have supper over before the rain began. The cry went down along the
line of the small army that stretched out for a mile in the rear, “Catch
up, ca-aa-atch uu-up!”
The colonel ordered his outfit to make a halt immediately and the cook
went about making a fire of caked buffalo dung, which he lit with the
dried grasses of the prairie. Soon coffee was steaming in enormous pots,
salt pork and beans were warming in huge iron kettles, and flapjacks
were mounting on a hot iron griddle. There were many individual parties
in the caravan who cooked and ate by themselves, but the colonel’s
outfit had a cook. The colonel carried with him a small tent, which was
not always set up, a camp table and folding chairs, so that upon
occasion he could eat with comfort and style. But tonight he and Steven,
the _mayordomo_ and Pierre, squatted about the camp fire, and in the
queer half-light that hung below the clouds, now rumbling and thundering
ominously, they quickly dispatched their food. The colonel at once set
about making his wagon shipshape for the night, and the _arrieros_ ran
about, covering their cargoes and _aparejos_. The mules and oxen were
turned into the improvised corral of the caravan train; the wagons were
driven into a circle and locked together by running the long tongues
under the beds of the wagons ahead. This had scarcely been accomplished
when with a great drive of wind that set loose rope and canvas
a-slapping and whipping, the storm was upon them.
As he could not reach his own wagon, Steven ducked for the colonel’s
tent, which was pitched just outside the circle of wagons and in a
little depression against a hill. He found the colonel sitting in the
center of his bed, a pipe in his mouth, a lantern already lit, and a
huge limp map spread out upon his knees. It was a buffalo hide upon
which was drawn in charcoal and in colored rock a plan of the Rockies
and of certain passes that lay beyond. While the thunder cracked over
their heads and the little tent rocked and swayed in the gale till
Steven thought it must surely collapse, St. Vrain unconcernedly examined
his map, shouting to Steve, “We’re takin’ a new trail over the mountains
this side Santa Fe; old buffalo and mountain-sheep trail. _Les animals
sylvestres_, wild critters, knew it was the easiest way, but no one on
two legs had sense to find it out till by accident recently.”
Each word was interrupted by terrific peals of thunder, and flashes of
lightning, and after a short time by a cloudburst directly over the
caravan, which let loose such a deluge that the colonel’s lantern was
doused, while at the same time a flood of water ran over the floor and
left the bed islanded in the center. Steven wished he were in his wagon,
well above the flood, but he had no thought of venturing out in the
storm to reach his own bunk.
“Time to go on watch.” In the darkness the colonel set his mouth to
Steve’s ear and roared. Amazed, but none the less ready, Steven
struggled out through the whipping flaps of the tent and staggered
blindly toward the spot where his wagon stood. He collided with St.
Vrain’s _mayordomo_, who shouted, “Watch.” Steve’s buckskin shirt and
breeches were already slimily wet, but he managed to reach inside the
wagon, feel about till his hand encountered his own bundle, and drag out
a heavy, stiff, Navajo blanket. He thrust his head through the slit,
grabbed his gun, and stumbled toward the corral opening, to take orders.
Between peals of thunder that drowned the voice, and torrents of rain
beneath which even the mules hung their heads and drooped their tails,
Steve was assigned the northwest watch. He strode away to his first
post, reflecting that upon a night like this no Indian would be thinking
of attack. The thought reminded him of what he felt would be Indian
tactics, and he crouched lower as he walked, holding his gun ready,
cocked, as though charging into battle, instead of into the prairie
dark.
Beyond he could see, as the lightning flashed, a small clump of bushes
on the side of a little knoll not fifty feet from the caravan corral. He
made toward this, planning to crouch in the lee of it, where he would
not be seen in the occasional flashes of lightning. The blanket, a
poncho, was already getting in its good work, for he felt warm, if wet,
next his skin, and the coarse Navajo wool was practically water-proof.
The tail of his beaver cap performed its office nicely, but the brim
could not keep the sheets of water out of his eyes or his mouth.
As he stooped toward the bush he heard a whizzing noise from behind,
ducked involuntarily, but not enough to completely escape a blow from
the missile hurled at him. It nicked his ear and scalp, but he had no
time to notice the pain. A form rose up out of the blackness and
grappled him. His gun was wrenched away in the struggle to keep his feet
and to hold fast the arms of wire that clutched below his thighs. He
kicked forward mightily, a kick that caught the dark assailant
amidships, and down they went together, to roll struggling to the bottom
of the knoll. By which time Steve’s long arms and longer legs had done
much toward increasing the distance between himself and his attacker,
and when they reached the bottom he was on top, but straining in every
sinew, winded, his throat almost cut off from air by fingers of steel.
It infuriated Steve. The blood of fighting ancestors of the sea rose in
his brain and suffused his eyes, so that literally he saw red in the
night’s blackness. Fingers gouged his eyeballs. It was agony. With a
howl of rage he lifted his big-boned young body and lunged down with one
hundred and seventy pounds, his knees landing in the other’s stomach.
The clutching hands relaxed, the figure went limp. Steven got to his
feet, stumbling backward over the fallen rifle. He recovered the weapon
and faced about to charge the darkness and any other attacks it
harbored. A flash of lightning showed the figure of an almost nude
Indian lying before him, face turned to the sky, eyes open.
Steven felt overcome by weakness; his legs were turned to water. He
struggled back toward where the wagons must be, missed them completely,
had a sense of being utterly alone in a limitless space of storm and
prairie. Blindly and a trifle wildly he headed in the opposite
direction; then a brilliant flash showed him the wagons lying to his
left. A few moments later he bumped into the captain for the night,
pacing his rounds about the wagons. A sudden lull of the thunder and
winds had come and the rain had lessened to a mild, steady downpour.
“Indians,” Steven gasped to the captain. He pointed toward the bush
where he had taken his station. “Guess I killed him!” He sank dazedly
upon a bale of cargo, his eyeballs still tortured. Half a dozen men had
already spread in a cordon in some deep matted grass beyond the corral.
A dozen more came running; the camp was alert. There was firing, muffled
and sounding far away. Steve pulled himself together and hurried toward
the sound. The _mayordomo_ rose up out of the grass. “On guard!” he
barked. “At the gate!” and without any inquiry into Steven’s condition
slunk on all fours round to the other side of the wagons.
The wind stopped, and the lightning. The rain descended in a warm,
steady stream. Curiously warm, thought Steven, as he wiped his dripping
face. Repressing an involuntary shudder that shook him, he tried to
pierce the darkness, watching this side and that, his rifle presented,
nerves tense. The rain stopped. Hours passed, hours during which Steven
grew rather faint, with a strange nausea at the pit of the stomach. He
longed to lie down, to sleep, and fought the shameful stupor that crept
over him, and was conquered, only to settle again. He would be
disgraced, and the penalty unnamable, were he to sleep at his post. He
had a vague feeling of remorse that he had not said good-by to his
father and mother before he left New Orleans--so long ago, so far away.
He must not go to sleep.
St. Vrain, the _mayordomo_, and some others appeared suddenly out of the
gloom. St. Vrain held up a dark lantern which he had been carrying under
his cloak, and in the barely perceptible light looked at Steven. “Come
on into my tent. He’s relieved from guard duty.” He nodded to one of the
trappers, and Steve followed him a trifle uncertainly. In the tent the
colonel drew out a kit with bandages and salve, a rude equipment but
skillfully handled with the deftness of long practice.
“Tomahawk cut; leetle further and he shave off your ear. Leetle further
and he shave off the top of your head--Kiowa,” the colonel explained
when he had finished the job. “Treacherous and fierce. Out scouting. You
put fear in the spy. He run, run his horse, but we get him. Morning is
nearly come now; you will go to catch some sleep.”
Steven managed to reach his bunk in the wagon just in time. Clambering
over the seat, he sank with a reeling head to his couch on the bales and
his senses swam off to blissful unconsciousness the moment his head
touched the blanket pillow. How much time had passed when he was waked
he could not imagine. The sun was shining straight in his face, but he
could have slept the clock around. “Breakfast,” he could hear the cry.
“We’re off in a half hour.”
He had been asleep but a few hours and ached in every muscle. Then he
remembered his tussle with the Indian the night before. He dragged
himself out to the camp fire, where scalding coffee and corn bread were
being passed out hurriedly. The coffee was bracing, and St. Vrain’s
hearty reception even more so. Steven noticed for the first time that
the front of his coat and his sleeve had literally been soaked with
blood, and his poncho was still damp and stained a dull red.
The _arrieros_ were shouting to the mules, which came running and stood
each beside his own equipage and cargo, waiting to be saddled, except a
few unruly ones who kicked up their heels and dashed off before the
pursuit of their drivers. The oxen went readily into their yokes, and in
an incredibly short time the caravan was once more moving over the
prairie, not so smoothly this morning, for the road was gummy and
slippery with mud. It was heavy and the ruts became deep.
“There’ll be no nooning today,” St. Vrain announced as he rode by on a
mule. “We’ll make Cottonwood Creek by night and go into camp there.” But
an unexpected occurrence was to set even the captain’s decision aside.
They had passed out of the storm-soaked area into a dry region where
apparently not a drop of rain had fallen.
Almost unperceived by Steven, a vibrating trembling of the earth became
apparent. It developed rapidly into a roar like distant thunder. Steven
listened, surprised; there was something elemental, alarming, in the
tremor. A number of hunters and trappers were riding by at a dead run.
“Buffalo! buffalo!” the shout went up. Leaping from his seat, Steven ran
ahead in time to see a cloud of dust come rolling over the crest of a
slope about a quarter of a mile beyond and to the right of the caravan.
Out of the dark cloud a black moving mass came thunderingly forward. It
was a herd of perhaps thousands of buffalo charging straight down upon
them. The caravan train was thrown into a panic. The oxen pushed forward
mightily, lowing in their fear. The mules went crazy, pulling out of the
ruts and dashing madly away from the oncoming stampede, while the
drivers yelled, lashed with their long whips, and pulled back on the
reins. The driver of Steven’s wagon leaped out, thrusting the whip into
Steve’s hands, and he found himself shouting at the crazed animals,
lashing them on the off side while the driver tugged at their heads on
the nigh side, trying to turn them from the Trail, straining to keep the
wagon from overturning, while to the right the stampede came nearer and
nearer. He had a momentary impulse to jump, but realized he was safer
right on the wagon. He was more frightened than ever he had been in his
life before.
The men who had ridden forward were trying to turn the avalanche of
buffalo, but it was impossible to swerve more than a portion of the
herd, and, borne on by their own momentum, a horde was sweeping down
upon the pack train. It looked as though they must pass directly over
the caravan. Snorting, their little eyes blood-shot, blood streaming
from the nostrils of many that had been shot, they came straight towards
Steve’s wagon. The mules in the path of these monarchs of the plain went
wild, rearing, bucking, their heavy cargoes notwithstanding, while some
of them bolted off the Trail and clear out of sight. His oxen lowing
frantically, Steve managed to pull out of the road. The hunters, who had
wheeled and were riding along beside the massive animals, were firing
into their ranks. It seemed as though bullets must be less than grape
seed against the hairy leather hides, yet one after another fell, but
without affecting the charge, for the rest stampeded on over them.
The shooting of the lead bulls, however, parted the mass and the ponies
galloping alongside caused a division in the ranks; while one part
swerved off at right angles, a great herd passed right through and over
the ranks of the caravan. Two wagons were upset and beneath the
thundering hoofs of the irresistible mass many of the mules were
overtaken and went down. When the buffalo had passed over the spot
nothing remained to be seen of mules, cargo, _atajo_, saddles. They were
ground into the dust.
St. Vrain was dashing up and down on his horse, trying to keep the whole
caravan from utter demoralization, while the hunters bore hard on the
flanks of the swerving beasts, dropping many of them, and diverting them
off and across the plains, following the rest of the herd. The caravan
was finally brought to a halt. It took hours to pursue and bring back
the stampeded mules that had escaped and to repair the damage. When this
was done and order somewhat restored, all fell to with alacrity at
skinning buffalo and butchering the fresh meat. It was very welcome, as
it was the first of any consequence they had had since leaving
Independence.
While they were cutting out the tenderest parts, Steve helping, and
learning how to wield a knife, his hands covered with grease and gore, a
sound the like of which he had never before heard, and which he was
never to forget, split the air. A troop of Indians mounted on pinto
ponies rode over the hill, and bore down on the still disorganized
caravan.
“I thought so,” said St. Vrain. “That herd was stampeded down upon us.”
The band of feathered red men now approached circuitously at a canter,
their demonstrations friendly. There must have been fifty or sixty of
them. Each brave held up both hands as a signal not to shoot, while they
came nearer and nearer until they were able to see lying on the plain
the large number of buffalo that had been killed, and to take in the
extent of the caravan. Because of the rolling character of the country
through which they were now passing it was impossible to tell how far
the train might extend, or whether beyond the rise in the near distances
a military escort might be following.
Steven was thrilled at so close a view of Indians, the first he had ever
seen with the exception of the redskin he had knocked out the night
before. He admired their splendid physiques (they were naked above the
waist), but saw that both cunning and cruelty showed in their faces. As
the braves came forward St. Vrain stood up, the men all laid hands on
their rifles, waiting for the Indians to make the first move. “How!”
grunted the leader, and there was “Howing” on both sides, ending with
the Indians dismounting. The _mayordomo_ came inconspicuously forward,
having ridden the length of the caravan, bringing back the stragglers,
making sure that those who had gone in pursuit of either mules or cargo
had returned. If they were cut off from the rest they might lose what
was more important than cargo or horses; and it was necessary to be
ready to take a united stand should the Indians open an attack.
St. Vrain, having butchered three buffalo and taken choice bits from
half a dozen others, offered the Indians the remainder of the carcasses.
This was highly agreeable to them, as it offered meat and hides without
a round of their own ammunition having been fired, and as St. Vrain and
the _mayordomo_ gave the signal to go on, the red men dismounted and set
swiftly to work to skin the fifty or sixty odd carcasses that lay thick
about them. The _mayordomo_ informed the Indians that they were making
haste to overtake a mythical division of their caravan which was ahead
of them.
And so the caravan passed on without a shot having been fired, or a drop
of blood having been sacrificed, other than that of the great bison.
It was late that night before Steven had the opportunity of satisfying
his sharp appetite upon one of the juiciest, most delicious steaks he
had ever eaten. An abundance of food now offered itself to the
caravaners. Quail and grouse started up from underfoot, and at Diamond
Springs, and later at Cottonwood Creek, the fish were so plentiful that
they could be almost scooped out with the hands. But the caravan did not
linger here nor make a camp as planned. Instead they forded the stream
by moonlight. It proved deeper than the drivers had thought, so that the
oxen had to swim with the heavy wagons behind them, and it was several
hours before the entire caravan got safely across. There was no
bivouacking until nearly dawn, by which time everyone was nearly
devoured with mosquitoes. But nothing more was seen of Indians. They
camped that night on a branch of the little Arkansas and the mosquitoes
continued like a plague.
From that time on good progress was made, at least fifteen miles each
day. And this in spite of, or perhaps because of, the torment of flies
which took the place of mosquitoes. Some of the mules ran off, wild with
the fly-bitten sores for which there was no healing under the
circumstances. They saw frequent bands of wild horses and traveled with
buffalo constantly, sometimes parting the herds as they passed through
them. The plains in the distance were dark with the shaggy coats of
thousands of grazing beasts, moving in small herds of fifty to one
hundred. Thousands of month-old buffalo calves frisked beside their
mothers and the prairies were covered with great “buffalo rings” trodden
in the grass by the vigilant bulls, circling the mothers and their young
in defense against wolf and coyote.
The caravaners often shot buffalo from the wagons as they passed and
paused only long enough to cut the tidbits from the carcasses,
especially the tongue and the hump. St. Vrain frowned on this wantonness
however, and gave orders not to shoot unless food was needed. Some of
the trappers dried a quantity of the meat, stringing small strips and
tying a lineful along the sides of the wagon to dry in the sun and air.
Steven joined the buffalo-hunters a few days after their encounter with
the Indians, and brought down a bull. Swept along by a trained pony in
company with the racing herd, thrilling with an excitement greater than
any he had yet experienced, he drew bead after bead, but his shots went
wild until, by chance he was honestly persuaded, a foolish creature
swerved into the path of his bullet and fell. Nevertheless, it gave the
Southern lad a standing with the hardened trappers and traders, along
with his exploit with the Indian on his first night guard.
“Lad,” said St. Vrain one night as he sat before the fire and rolled
himself a cigarette in the thin inner husk of corn, “you seem to take to
the life, but you’ve had but a taste. There are hardships ahead. We stop
at Cow Creek tonight, and tomorrow afternoon we should strike the
Arkansas at the Great Bend. Pawnee Rock lies not far beyond. Ah, that is
where, my young fr’en’, I have encountered great dangers. It is the
battleground of Cheyenne and Pawnee, the hunting-ground of all. Two
years ago we stood with a caravan there for three whole days, fighting
off a band of Pawnees. Forty-two men we were, and twenty-six mule
wagons, with a bunch of loose stock. We were without water two nights
and nearly three days till at length I ordered to hitch up and drive on
to Pawnee Forks, where the trail crosses the Arkansas. We made it, a
double crossing, for the river bends like a horseshoe, as you will see.
But the wagons were smashed up, and when we reached the other side the
Indians began firing on us from the bluffs. We cleaned ’em out and lost
but four men, with seven wounded. Twenty mules were crippled and a dozen
killed.”
“There was another young fr’en’ of mine on that trip”--St. Vrain puffed
at his cigarette reminiscently--“Christopher Carson. ‘Kit,’ we call him.
Just a boy, Steven, make half of you, but fight like a mountain cat.
Those bloodthirst’ Pawnees got to know him.”
“Are all the Indians so hostile?” asked Steve.
“No. The Comanches and Utes nearer the border of Mexican territory are
much more friendly. We deal squarely with the Indians with whom we
trade, and they with us. And the Indians of the towns, the Pueblos, as
the Spaniards say, who live beyond the mountains only, in New Mexico,
they do not fight unless attacked or treated badly. They cultivate the
land, they work, they are good people.”
“Except when the Mexicans set them on the Americanos,” said Pierre, who
was sitting near. “Between Indian and Spaniard, though, monsieur, I
rather deal with the Indian, me!” He spat disgustedly. “How many
thousan’ mile I travel to get my wage after ten year. I no longer work
for American Fur Company. I work for Rocky Mountain Fur Company. _Hein_,
St. Vrain? I work from Taos to Bent’s Fort.”
A day later the caravan had entered the rich and beautiful valley of the
Arkansas, following the Trail where it swung in toward the Big Bend,
through a hunting-ground that abounded in all manner of game. Thirteen
miles beyond lay Pawnee Rock. There were signs of a caravan having
preceded them by not many days. St. Vrain and the _mayordomo_ discussed
the possibility of its being the army detachment that had followed
Bent’s caravan. Every man was supplied with plenty of powder, two good
muskets, a pouchful of balls. They threaded the valley of the Arkansas
prepared for a surprise attack.
Steven, like all the other men, had for weeks been sleeping with his
loaded gun by his side. Night alarms were frequent, yet the only attacks
were those of mosquitoes, against which guns were useless.
There was an incessant scratching and brushing and switching of tails to
keep off horse flies and a giant and bloodthirsty mosquito. Steven’s pet
riding-mule ran off insane with the flies and never came back. Steven
was so eager to bear his part that he slept little; as a consequence,
when his turn came for night watch it was all that he could do, even
with the help of the mosquitoes, to keep his eyes open and not disgrace
himself eternally by falling asleep at his post. After midnight,
however, it was not so difficult, but next day he drowsed and nodded on
the wagon seat and slept outright while Pierre drove beside him.
He was roused when the trapper yelled out, “Pawnee Rock,” and opened his
eyes to see looming high before them the rock of bloody record, as gory
a stone of sacrifice, according to the colonel’s stories, as that famed
in old Mexico for the slaughter of Aztec victims. As they passed below
the face of the cliff the colonel came riding by to see what might lie
beyond on the far side. But for once the sentinel of the plains harbored
no dead, no skeletons. There was no sign of a struggle having taken
place there, and the caravan continued onward to the Forks with a breath
of relief. At the Forks they left the southern trail that followed the
river so closely, and took to the northern route, which the colonel
thought less open to ambush.
The Forks was the last water seen for two days. They passed out of the
verdure that followed the level river banks and into a sweltering land
where the mosquitoes were still unbearable. The caravan plodded along
until on a dazzling midday, when the order came to halt for a mooning,
the animals stood with open, panting months. A large white ox that was
yoked to St. Vrain’s wagon lay down in the shade of the Conestoga, as it
was called, and the colonel helped Steve stretch a blanket from two
poles to give the beast some relief from the heat of the sun. The
colonel was distressed at finding that the oxen upon which he had
counted so much could not, apparently, withstand as much drought as the
mules. But he learned that the animal had not had its fill at the Forks
and had been suffering patiently. Steve begged to be allowed to go off
with Pierre to fetch water for the ox, as they were not more than a few
miles inland from the river, and St. Vrain agreed. That night they crept
on hands and knees through the deep grass, their pace accelerated by the
giant gnats and buzzing of their constant companions. The river lay
beyond. There was scarcely a tree along the level banks, and to approach
it would mean exposing themselves. They would be seen, without doubt,
for a bright moon was shining now. Pierre, fortunately, struck one of
the numerous buffalo trails that had been trodden through the grass by
the passage of many hoofs, and following it, still on hands and knees,
they came out at the river’s edge where the trail was worn in a deep and
narrow cut through the bank. In the shadow of the cut they could not be
seen. They flung themselves down, drank their fill, and filled the
canteens. On the other side of the river reared high white sand dunes
that gleamed in the moonlight. The full moon, riding like a lantern over
the prairie, showed them for a few moments three feathered riders on the
opposite bank. They dropped, and retreated for a mile on flat stomachs.
Reaching the caravan again, Steven poured one canteen after another into
a basin for the panting creature on whose life depended their means of
locomotion and the transportation of a part of that valuable cargo for
the sake of which death in the desert, torture by Indians, were being
defied. The ox looked up at them gratefully and drained the basin at one
suck. Before long it was sufficiently revived to stagger to its feet and
graze. “We return to the river again tomorrow night,” said St. Vrain,
“and two days later will be at Cimmaron Crossing. We’ll cross the
Arkansas there and take the shorter, southern trail straight to Santa
Fe.”
This trail led through a desolate stretch of desert, a high arid
plateau, swept by blistering winds. Steven was disappointed that they
would leave the Arkansas behind and not make Bent’s Fort.