“JUMPING OFF”
The reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without
encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our
companions were no exception to the rule. They had a wagon drawn by six
mules and crammed with provisions for six months, besides ammunition
enough for a regiment; spare rifles and fowling-pieces, ropes and
harness; personal baggage, and a miscellaneous assortment of articles,
which produced infinite embarrassment on the journey. They had also
decorated their persons with telescopes and portable compasses, and
carried English double-barreled rifles of sixteen to the pound caliber,
slung to their saddles in dragoon fashion.
By sunrise on the 23d of May we had breakfasted; the tents were leveled,
the animals saddled and harnessed, and all was prepared. “Avance donc!
get up!” cried Delorier from his seat in front of the cart. Wright,
our friend’s muleteer, after some swearing and lashing, got his
insubordinate train in motion, and then the whole party filed from the
ground. Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and board, and the principles
of Blackstone’s Commentaries. The day was a most auspicious one; and yet
Shaw and I felt certain misgivings, which in the sequel proved but too
well founded. We had just learned that though R. had taken it upon him
to adopt this course without consulting us, not a single man in
the party was acquainted with it; and the absurdity of our friend’s
high-handed measure very soon became manifest. His plan was to strike
the trail of several companies of dragoons, who last summer had made an
expedition under Colonel Kearny to Fort Laramie, and by this means to
reach the grand trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte.
We rode for an hour or two when a familiar cluster of buildings appeared
on a little hill. “Hallo!” shouted the Kickapoo trader from over his
fence. “Where are you going?” A few rather emphatic exclamations might
have been heard among us, when we found that we had gone miles out of
our way, and were not advanced an inch toward the Rocky Mountains. So
we turned in the direction the trader indicated, and with the sun for
a guide, began to trace a “bee line” across the prairies. We struggled
through copses and lines of wood; we waded brooks and pools of water; we
traversed prairies as green as an emerald, expanding before us for mile
after mile; wider and more wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode over:
“Man nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil;
No sign of travel; none of toil;
The very air was mute.”
Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we looked
back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a mile or
more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white wagons creeping
slowly along. “Here we are at last!” shouted the captain. And in truth
we had struck upon the traces of a large body of horse. We turned
joyfully and followed this new course, with tempers somewhat improved;
and toward sunset encamped on a high swell of the prairie, at the foot
of which a lazy stream soaked along through clumps of rank grass. It
was getting dark. We turned the horses loose to feed. “Drive down the
tent-pickets hard,” said Henry Chatillon, “it is going to blow.” We did
so, and secured the tent as well as we could; for the sky had changed
totally, and a fresh damp smell in the wind warned us that a stormy
night was likely to succeed the hot clear day. The prairie also wore
a new aspect, and its vast swells had grown black and somber under the
shadow of the clouds. The thunder soon began to growl at a distance.
Picketing and hobbling the horses among the rich grass at the foot of
the slope, where we encamped, we gained a shelter just as the rain began
to fall; and sat at the opening of the tent, watching the proceedings of
the captain. In defiance of the rain he was stalking among the horses,
wrapped in an old Scotch plaid. An extreme solicitude tormented him,
lest some of his favorites should escape, or some accident should befall
them; and he cast an anxious eye toward three wolves who were sneaking
along over the dreary surface of the plain, as if he dreaded some
hostile demonstration on their part.
On the next morning we had gone but a mile or two, when we came to an
extensive belt of woods, through the midst of which ran a stream, wide,
deep, and of an appearance particularly muddy and treacherous. Delorier
was in advance with his cart; he jerked his pipe from his mouth, lashed
his mules, and poured forth a volley of Canadian ejaculations. In
plunged the cart, but midway it stuck fast. Delorier leaped out
knee-deep in water, and by dint of sacres and a vigorous application of
the whip, he urged the mules out of the slough. Then approached the long
team and heavy wagon of our friends; but it paused on the brink.
“Now my advice is--” began the captain, who had been anxiously
contemplating the muddy gulf.
“Drive on!” cried R.
But Wright, the muleteer, apparently had not as yet decided the point
in his own mind; and he sat still in his seat on one of the shaft-mules,
whistling in a low contemplative strain to himself.
“My advice is,” resumed the captain, “that we unload; for I’ll bet any
man five pounds that if we try to go through, we shall stick fast.”
“By the powers, we shall stick fast!” echoed Jack, the captain’s
brother, shaking his large head with an air of firm conviction.
“Drive on! drive on!” cried R. petulantly.
“Well,” observed the captain, turning to us as we sat looking on, much
edified by this by-play among our confederates, “I can only give my
advice and if people won’t be reasonable, why, they won’t; that’s all!”
Meanwhile Wright had apparently made up his mind; for he suddenly began
to shout forth a volley of oaths and curses, that, compared with the
French imprecations of Delorier, sounded like the roaring of heavy
cannon after the popping and sputtering of a bunch of Chinese crackers.
At the same time he discharged a shower of blows upon his mules, who
hastily dived into the mud and drew the wagon lumbering after them. For
a moment the issue was dubious. Wright writhed about in his saddle,
and swore and lashed like a madman; but who can count on a team of
half-broken mules? At the most critical point, when all should have been
harmony and combined effort, the perverse brutes fell into lamentable
disorder, and huddled together in confusion on the farther bank. There
was the wagon up to the hub in mud, and visibly settling every instant.
There was nothing for it but to unload; then to dig away the mud
from before the wheels with a spade, and lay a causeway of bushes and
branches. This agreeable labor accomplished, the wagon at last emerged;
but if I mention that some interruption of this sort occurred at least
four or five times a day for a fortnight, the reader will understand
that our progress toward the Platte was not without its obstacles.
We traveled six or seven miles farther, and “nooned” near a brook. On
the point of resuming our journey, when the horses were all driven down
to water, my homesick charger, Pontiac, made a sudden leap across, and
set off at a round trot for the settlements. I mounted my remaining
horse, and started in pursuit. Making a circuit, I headed the runaway,
hoping to drive him back to camp; but he instantly broke into a gallop,
made a wide tour on the prairie, and got past me again. I tried this
plan repeatedly, with the same result; Pontiac was evidently disgusted
with the prairie; so I abandoned it, and tried another, trotting along
gently behind him, in hopes that I might quietly get near enough to
seize the trail-rope which was fastened to his neck, and dragged about a
dozen feet behind him. The chase grew interesting. For mile after mile
I followed the rascal, with the utmost care not to alarm him, and
gradually got nearer, until at length old Hendrick’s nose was fairly
brushed by the whisking tail of the unsuspecting Pontiac. Without
drawing rein, I slid softly to the ground; but my long heavy rifle
encumbered me, and the low sound it made in striking the horn of the
saddle startled him; he pricked up his ears, and sprang off at a run.
“My friend,” thought I, remounting, “do that again, and I will shoot
you!”
Fort Leavenworth was about forty miles distant, and thither I determined
to follow him. I made up my mind to spend a solitary and supperless
night, and then set out again in the morning. One hope, however,
remained. The creek where the wagon had stuck was just before us;
Pontiac might be thirsty with his run, and stop there to drink. I kept
as near to him as possible, taking every precaution not to alarm him
again; and the result proved as I had hoped: for he walked deliberately
among the trees, and stooped down to the water. I alighted, dragged old
Hendrick through the mud, and with a feeling of infinite satisfaction
picked up the slimy trail-rope and twisted it three times round my hand.
“Now let me see you get away again!” I thought, as I remounted. But
Pontiac was exceedingly reluctant to turn back; Hendrick, too, who
had evidently flattered himself with vain hopes, showed the utmost
repugnance, and grumbled in a manner peculiar to himself at being
compelled to face about. A smart cut of the whip restored his
cheerfulness; and dragging the recovered truant behind, I set out in
search of the camp. An hour or two elapsed, when, near sunset, I saw the
tents, standing on a rich swell of the prairie, beyond a line of woods,
while the bands of horses were feeding in a low meadow close at hand.
There sat Jack C., cross-legged, in the sun, splicing a trail-rope,
and the rest were lying on the grass, smoking and telling stories. That
night we enjoyed a serenade from the wolves, more lively than any with
which they had yet favored us; and in the morning one of the musicians
appeared, not many rods from the tents, quietly seated among the horses,
looking at us with a pair of large gray eyes; but perceiving a rifle
leveled at him, he leaped up and made off in hot haste.
I pass by the following day or two of our journey, for nothing occurred
worthy of record. Should any one of my readers ever be impelled to visit
the prairies, and should he choose the route of the Platte (the best,
perhaps, that can be adopted), I can assure him that he need not
think to enter at once upon the paradise of his imagination. A dreary
preliminary, protracted crossing of the threshold awaits him before
he finds himself fairly upon the verge of the “great American desert,”
those barren wastes, the haunts of the buffalo and the Indian, where
the very shadow of civilization lies a hundred leagues behind him. The
intervening country, the wide and fertile belt that extends for
several hundred miles beyond the extreme frontier, will probably answer
tolerably well to his preconceived ideas of the prairie; for this it
is from which picturesque tourists, painters, poets, and novelists, who
have seldom penetrated farther, have derived their conceptions of the
whole region. If he has a painter’s eye, he may find his period of
probation not wholly void of interest. The scenery, though tame, is
graceful and pleasing. Here are level plains, too wide for the eye
to measure green undulations, like motionless swells of the ocean;
abundance of streams, followed through all their windings by lines of
woods and scattered groves. But let him be as enthusiastic as he may,
he will find enough to damp his ardor. His wagons will stick in the mud;
his horses will break loose; harness will give way, and axle-trees prove
unsound. His bed will be a soft one, consisting often of black mud,
of the richest consistency. As for food, he must content himself with
biscuit and salt provisions; for strange as it may seem, this tract of
country produces very little game. As he advances, indeed, he will see,
moldering in the grass by his path, the vast antlers of the elk, and
farther on, the whitened skulls of the buffalo, once swarming over this
now deserted region. Perhaps, like us, he may journey for a fortnight,
and see not so much as the hoof-print of a deer; in the spring, not even
a prairie hen is to be had.
Yet, to compensate him for this unlooked-for deficiency of game, he
will find himself beset with “varmints” innumerable. The wolves will
entertain him with a concerto at night, and skulk around him by day,
just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into badger-holes; from
every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and
trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape and
dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide away from under his horse’s
feet, or quietly visit him in his tent at night; while the pertinacious
humming of unnumbered mosquitoes will banish sleep from his eyelids.
When thirsty with a long ride in the scorching sun over some boundless
reach of prairie, he comes at length to a pool of water, and alights to
drink, he discovers a troop of young tadpoles sporting in the bottom of
his cup. Add to this, that all the morning the hot sun beats upon him
with sultry, penetrating heat, and that, with provoking regularity, at
about four o’clock in the afternoon, a thunderstorm rises and drenches
him to the skin. Such being the charms of this favored region, the
reader will easily conceive the extent of our gratification at learning
that for a week we had been journeying on the wrong track! How this
agreeable discovery was made I will presently explain.
One day, after a protracted morning’s ride, we stopped to rest at noon
upon the open prairie. No trees were in sight; but close at hand, a
little dribbling brook was twisting from side to side through a hollow;
now forming holes of stagnant water, and now gliding over the mud in a
scarcely perceptible current, among a growth of sickly bushes, and great
clumps of tall rank grass. The day was excessively hot and oppressive.
The horses and mules were rolling on the prairie to refresh themselves,
or feeding among the bushes in the hollow. We had dined; and Delorier,
puffing at his pipe, knelt on the grass, scrubbing our service of tin
plate. Shaw lay in the shade, under the cart, to rest for a while,
before the word should be given to “catch up.” Henry Chatillon, before
lying down, was looking about for signs of snakes, the only living
things that he feared, and uttering various ejaculations of disgust,
at finding several suspicious-looking holes close to the cart. I sat
leaning against the wheel in a scanty strip of shade, making a pair of
hobbles to replace those which my contumacious steed Pontiac had
broken the night before. The camp of our friends, a rod or two distant,
presented the same scene of lazy tranquillity.
“Hallo!” cried Henry, looking up from his inspection of the snake-holes,
“here comes the old captain!”
The captain approached, and stood for a moment contemplating us in
silence.
“I say, Parkman,” he began, “look at Shaw there, asleep under the cart,
with the tar dripping off the hub of the wheel on his shoulder!”
At this Shaw got up, with his eyes half opened, and feeling the part
indicated, he found his hand glued fast to his red flannel shirt.
“He’ll look well when he gets among the squaws, won’t he?” observed the
captain, with a grin.
He then crawled under the cart, and began to tell stories of which his
stock was inexhaustible. Yet every moment he would glance nervously at
the horses. At last he jumped up in great excitement. “See that horse!
There--that fellow just walking over the hill! By Jove; he’s off. It’s
your big horse, Shaw; no it isn’t, it’s Jack’s! Jack! Jack! hallo,
Jack!” Jack thus invoked, jumped up and stared vacantly at us.
“Go and catch your horse, if you don’t want to lose him!” roared the
captain.
Jack instantly set off at a run through the grass, his broad pantaloons
flapping about his feet. The captain gazed anxiously till he saw
that the horse was caught; then he sat down, with a countenance of
thoughtfulness and care.
“I tell you what it is,” he said, “this will never do at all. We shall
lose every horse in the band someday or other, and then a pretty plight
we should be in! Now I am convinced that the only way for us is to have
every man in the camp stand horse-guard in rotation whenever we stop.
Supposing a hundred Pawnees should jump up out of that ravine, all
yelling and flapping their buffalo robes, in the way they do? Why, in
two minutes not a hoof would be in sight.” We reminded the captain that
a hundred Pawnees would probably demolish the horse-guard, if he were to
resist their depredations.
“At any rate,” pursued the captain, evading the point, “our whole system
is wrong; I’m convinced of it; it is totally unmilitary. Why, the way
we travel, strung out over the prairie for a mile, an enemy might attack
the foremost men, and cut them off before the rest could come up.”
“We are not in an enemy’s country, yet,” said Shaw; “when we are, we’ll
travel together.”
“Then,” said the captain, “we might be attacked in camp. We’ve no
sentinels; we camp in disorder; no precautions at all to guard against
surprise. My own convictions are that we ought to camp in a hollow
square, with the fires in the center; and have sentinels, and a regular
password appointed for every night. Besides, there should be vedettes,
riding in advance, to find a place for the camp and give warning of an
enemy. These are my convictions. I don’t want to dictate to any man. I
give advice to the best of my judgment, that’s all; and then let people
do as they please.”
We intimated that perhaps it would be as well to postpone such
burdensome precautions until there should be some actual need of
them; but he shook his head dubiously. The captain’s sense of military
propriety had been severely shocked by what he considered the irregular
proceedings of the party; and this was not the first time he had
expressed himself upon the subject. But his convictions seldom produced
any practical results. In the present case, he contented himself,
as usual, with enlarging on the importance of his suggestions, and
wondering that they were not adopted. But his plan of sending out
vedettes seemed particularly dear to him; and as no one else was
disposed to second his views on this point, he took it into his head to
ride forward that afternoon, himself.
“Come, Parkman,” said he, “will you go with me?”
We set out together, and rode a mile or two in advance. The captain,
in the course of twenty years’ service in the British army, had seen
something of life; one extensive side of it, at least, he had enjoyed
the best opportunities for studying; and being naturally a pleasant
fellow, he was a very entertaining companion. He cracked jokes and told
stories for an hour or two; until, looking back, we saw the prairie
behind us stretching away to the horizon, without a horseman or a wagon
in sight.
“Now,” said the captain, “I think the vedettes had better stop till the
main body comes up.”
I was of the same opinion. There was a thick growth of woods just before
us, with a stream running through them. Having crossed this, we found
on the other side a fine level meadow, half encircled by the trees; and
fastening our horses to some bushes, we sat down on the grass; while,
with an old stump of a tree for a target, I began to display the
superiority of the renowned rifle of the back woods over the foreign
innovation borne by the captain. At length voices could be heard in the
distance behind the trees.
“There they come!” said the captain: “let’s go and see how they get
through the creek.”
We mounted and rode to the bank of the stream, where the trail crossed
it. It ran in a deep hollow, full of trees; as we looked down, we saw a
confused crowd of horsemen riding through the water; and among the dingy
habiliment of our party glittered the uniforms of four dragoons.
Shaw came whipping his horse up the back, in advance of the rest, with
a somewhat indignant countenance. The first word he spoke was a blessing
fervently invoked on the head of R., who was riding, with a crest-fallen
air, in the rear. Thanks to the ingenious devices of the gentleman, we
had missed the track entirely, and wandered, not toward the Platte, but
to the village of the Iowa Indians. This we learned from the dragoons,
who had lately deserted from Fort Leavenworth. They told us that our
best plan now was to keep to the northward until we should strike the
trail formed by several parties of Oregon emigrants, who had that season
set out from St. Joseph’s in Missouri.
In extremely bad temper, we encamped on this ill-starred spot; while the
deserters, whose case admitted of no delay rode rapidly forward. On the
day following, striking the St. Joseph’s trail, we turned our horses’
heads toward Fort Laramie, then about seven hundred miles to the
westward.