“THE BIG BLUE”
The great medley of Oregon and California emigrants, at their camps
around Independence, had heard reports that several additional parties
were on the point of setting out from St. Joseph’s farther to the
northward. The prevailing impression was that these were Mormons,
twenty-three hundred in number; and a great alarm was excited in
consequence. The people of Illinois and Missouri, who composed by far
the greater part of the emigrants, have never been on the best terms
with the “Latter Day Saints”; and it is notorious throughout the country
how much blood has been spilt in their feuds, even far within the limits
of the settlements. No one could predict what would be the result, when
large armed bodies of these fanatics should encounter the most impetuous
and reckless of their old enemies on the broad prairie, far beyond the
reach of law or military force. The women and children at Independence
raised a great outcry; the men themselves were seriously alarmed; and,
as I learned, they sent to Colonel Kearny, requesting an escort of
dragoons as far as the Platte. This was refused; and as the sequel
proved, there was no occasion for it. The St. Joseph’s emigrants were as
good Christians and as zealous Mormon-haters as the rest; and the very
few families of the “Saints” who passed out this season by the route of
the Platte remained behind until the great tide of emigration had gone
by; standing in quite as much awe of the “gentiles” as the latter did of
them.
We were now, as I before mentioned, upon this St. Joseph’s trail. It was
evident, by the traces, that large parties were a few days in advance of
us; and as we too supposed them to be Mormons, we had some apprehension
of interruption.
The journey was somewhat monotonous. One day we rode on for hours,
without seeing a tree or a bush; before, behind, and on either side,
stretched the vast expanse, rolling in a succession of graceful swells,
covered with the unbroken carpet of fresh green grass. Here and there a
crow, or a raven, or a turkey-buzzard, relieved the uniformity.
“What shall we do to-night for wood and water?” we began to ask of each
other; for the sun was within an hour of setting. At length a dark green
speck appeared, far off on the right; it was the top of a tree, peering
over a swell of the prairie; and leaving the trail, we made all haste
toward it. It proved to be the vanguard of a cluster of bushes and low
trees, that surrounded some pools of water in an extensive hollow; so we
encamped on the rising ground near it.
Shaw and I were sitting in the tent, when Delorier thrust his brown face
and old felt hat into the opening, and dilating his eyes to their utmost
extent, announced supper. There were the tin cups and the iron spoons,
arranged in military order on the grass, and the coffee-pot predominant
in the midst. The meal was soon dispatched; but Henry Chatillon still
sat cross-legged, dallying with the remnant of his coffee, the beverage
in universal use upon the prairie, and an especial favorite with him. He
preferred it in its virgin flavor, unimpaired by sugar or cream; and
on the present occasion it met his entire approval, being exceedingly
strong, or, as he expressed it, “right black.”
It was a rich and gorgeous sunset--an American sunset; and the ruddy
glow of the sky was reflected from some extensive pools of water among
the shadowy copses in the meadow below.
“I must have a bath to-night,” said Shaw. “How is it, Delorier? Any
chance for a swim down here?”
“Ah! I cannot tell; just as you please, monsieur,” replied Delorier,
shrugging his shoulders, perplexed by his ignorance of English, and
extremely anxious to conform in all respects to the opinion and wishes
of his bourgeois.
“Look at his moccasion,” said I. “It has evidently been lately immersed
in a profound abyss of black mud.”
“Come,” said Shaw; “at any rate we can see for ourselves.”
We set out together; and as we approached the bushes, which were at some
distance, we found the ground becoming rather treacherous. We could
only get along by stepping upon large clumps of tall rank grass, with
fathomless gulfs between, like innumerable little quaking islands in
an ocean of mud, where a false step would have involved our boots in a
catastrophe like that which had befallen Delorier’s moccasins. The thing
looked desperate; we separated, so as to search in different directions,
Shaw going off to the right, while I kept straight forward. At last I
came to the edge of the bushes: they were young waterwillows, covered
with their caterpillar-like blossoms, but intervening between them
and the last grass clump was a black and deep slough, over which, by a
vigorous exertion, I contrived to jump. Then I shouldered my way through
the willows, tramping them down by main force, till I came to a wide
stream of water, three inches deep, languidly creeping along over a
bottom of sleek mud. My arrival produced a great commotion. A huge green
bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a
loud splash: his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked
them energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing himself in
the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence several large air bubbles
struggled lazily to the top. Some little spotted frogs instantly
followed the patriarch’s example; and then three turtles, not larger
than a dollar, tumbled themselves off a broad “lily pad,” where they had
been reposing. At the same time a snake, gayly striped with black and
yellow, glided out from the bank, and writhed across to the other side;
and a small stagnant pool into which my foot had inadvertently pushed a
stone was instantly alive with a congregation of black tadpoles.
“Any chance for a bath, where you are?” called out Shaw, from a
distance.
The answer was not encouraging. I retreated through the willows, and
rejoining my companion, we proceeded to push our researches in company.
Not far on the right, a rising ground, covered with trees and bushes,
seemed to sink down abruptly to the water, and give hope of better
success; so toward this we directed our steps. When we reached the place
we found it no easy matter to get along between the hill and the water,
impeded as we were by a growth of stiff, obstinate young birch-trees,
laced together by grapevines. In the twilight, we now and then, to
support ourselves, snatched at the touch-me-not stem of some ancient
sweet-brier. Shaw, who was in advance, suddenly uttered a somewhat
emphatic monosyllable; and looking up I saw him with one hand grasping a
sapling, and one foot immersed in the water, from which he had forgotten
to withdraw it, his whole attention being engaged in contemplating the
movements of a water-snake, about five feet long, curiously checkered
with black and green, who was deliberately swimming across the pool.
There being no stick or stone at hand to pelt him with, we looked at him
for a time in silent disgust; and then pushed forward. Our perseverence
was at last rewarded; for several rods farther on, we emerged upon a
little level grassy nook among the brushwood, and by an extraordinary
dispensation of fortune, the weeds and floating sticks, which elsewhere
covered the pool, seemed to have drawn apart, and left a few yards of
clear water just in front of this favored spot. We sounded it with a
stick; it was four feet deep; we lifted a specimen in our cupped hands;
it seemed reasonably transparent, so we decided that the time for action
was arrived. But our ablutions were suddenly interrupted by ten
thousand punctures, like poisoned needles, and the humming of myriads
of over-grown mosquitoes, rising in all directions from their native mud
and slime and swarming to the feast. We were fain to beat a retreat with
all possible speed.
We made toward the tents, much refreshed by the bath which the heat of
the weather, joined to our prejudices, had rendered very desirable.
“What’s the matter with the captain? look at him!” said Shaw. The
captain stood alone on the prairie, swinging his hat violently around
his head, and lifting first one foot and then the other, without moving
from the spot. First he looked down to the ground with an air of
supreme abhorrence; then he gazed upward with a perplexed and indignant
countenance, as if trying to trace the flight of an unseen enemy. We
called to know what was the matter; but he replied only by execrations
directed against some unknown object. We approached, when our ears were
saluted by a droning sound, as if twenty bee-hives had been overturned
at once. The air above was full of large black insects, in a state of
great commotion, and multitudes were flying about just above the tops of
the grass blades.
“Don’t be afraid,” called the captain, observing us recoil. “The brutes
won’t sting.”
At this I knocked one down with my hat, and discovered him to be no
other than a “dorbug”; and looking closer, we found the ground thickly
perforated with their holes.
We took a hasty leave of this flourishing colony, and walking up
the rising ground to the tents, found Delorier’s fire still glowing
brightly. We sat down around it, and Shaw began to expatiate on the
admirable facilities for bathing that we had discovered, and recommended
the captain by all means to go down there before breakfast in the
morning. The captain was in the act of remarking that he couldn’t have
believed it possible, when he suddenly interrupted himself, and clapped
his hand to his cheek, exclaiming that “those infernal humbugs were at
him again.” In fact, we began to hear sounds as if bullets were humming
over our heads. In a moment something rapped me sharply on the forehead,
then upon the neck, and immediately I felt an indefinite number of sharp
wiry claws in active motion, as if their owner were bent on pushing his
explorations farther. I seized him, and dropped him into the fire.
Our party speedily broke up, and we adjourned to our respective tents,
where, closing the opening fast, we hoped to be exempt from invasion.
But all precaution was fruitless. The dorbugs hummed through the tent,
and marched over our faces until day-light; when, opening our blankets,
we found several dozen clinging there with the utmost tenacity. The
first object that met our eyes in the morning was Delorier, who seemed
to be apostrophizing his frying-pan, which he held by the handle at
arm’s length. It appeared that he had left it at night by the fire; and
the bottom was now covered with dorbugs, firmly imbedded. Multitudes
beside, curiously parched and shriveled, lay scattered among the ashes.
The horses and mules were turned loose to feed. We had just taken our
seats at breakfast, or rather reclined in the classic mode, when an
exclamation from Henry Chatillon, and a shout of alarm from the captain,
gave warning of some casualty, and looking up, we saw the whole band
of animals, twenty-three in number, filing off for the settlements, the
incorrigible Pontiac at their head, jumping along with hobbled feet,
at a gait much more rapid than graceful. Three or four of us ran to cut
them off, dashing as best we might through the tall grass, which was
glittering with myriads of dewdrops. After a race of a mile or more,
Shaw caught a horse. Tying the trail-rope by way of bridle round the
animal’s jaw, and leaping upon his back, he got in advance of the
remaining fugitives, while we, soon bringing them together, drove them
in a crowd up to the tents, where each man caught and saddled his own.
Then we heard lamentations and curses; for half the horses had broke
their hobbles, and many were seriously galled by attempting to run in
fetters.
It was late that morning before we were on the march; and early in the
afternoon we were compelled to encamp, for a thunder-gust came up and
suddenly enveloped us in whirling sheets of rain. With much ado, we
pitched our tents amid the tempest, and all night long the thunder
bellowed and growled over our heads. In the morning, light peaceful
showers succeeded the cataracts of rain, that had been drenching us
through the canvas of our tents. About noon, when there were some
treacherous indications of fair weather, we got in motion again.
Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; the clouds
were like light piles of cotton; and where the blue sky was visible, it
wore a hazy and languid aspect. The sun beat down upon us with a sultry
penetrating heat almost insupportable, and as our party crept slowly
along over the interminable level, the horses hung their heads as
they waded fetlock deep through the mud, and the men slouched into
the easiest position upon the saddle. At last, toward evening, the old
familiar black heads of thunderclouds rose fast above the horizon, and
the same deep muttering of distant thunder that had become the ordinary
accompaniment of our afternoon’s journey began to roll hoarsely over
the prairie. Only a few minutes elapsed before the whole sky was densely
shrouded, and the prairie and some clusters of woods in front assumed a
purple hue beneath the inky shadows. Suddenly from the densest fold of
the cloud the flash leaped out, quivering again and again down to the
edge of the prairie; and at the same instant came the sharp burst and
the long rolling peal of the thunder. A cool wind, filled with the smell
of rain, just then overtook us, leveling the tall grass by the side of
the path.
“Come on; we must ride for it!” shouted Shaw, rushing past at full
speed, his led horse snorting at his side. The whole party broke into
full gallop, and made for the trees in front. Passing these, we found
beyond them a meadow which they half inclosed. We rode pell-mell upon
the ground, leaped from horseback, tore off our saddles; and in a moment
each man was kneeling at his horse’s feet. The hobbles were adjusted,
and the animals turned loose; then, as the wagons came wheeling rapidly
to the spot, we seized upon the tent-poles, and just as the storm broke,
we were prepared to receive it. It came upon us almost with the darkness
of night; the trees, which were close at hand, were completely shrouded
by the roaring torrents of rain.
We were sitting in the tent, when Delorier, with his broad felt hat
hanging about his ears, and his shoulders glistening with rain, thrust
in his head.
“Voulez-vous du souper, tout de suite? I can make a fire, sous la
charette--I b’lieve so--I try.”
“Never mind supper, man; come in out of the rain.”
Delorier accordingly crouched in the entrance, for modesty would not
permit him to intrude farther.
Our tent was none of the best defense against such a cataract. The
rain could not enter bodily, but it beat through the canvas in a fine
drizzle, that wetted us just as effectively. We sat upon our saddles
with faces of the utmost surliness, while the water dropped from the
vizors of our caps, and trickled down our cheeks. My india-rubber cloak
conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to the ground; and Shaw’s
blanket-coat was saturated like a sponge. But what most concerned us
was the sight of several puddles of water rapidly accumulating; one
in particular, that was gathering around the tent-pole, threatened
to overspread the whole area within the tent, holding forth but an
indifferent promise of a comfortable night’s rest. Toward sunset,
however, the storm ceased as suddenly as it began. A bright streak
of clear red sky appeared above the western verge of the prairie, the
horizontal rays of the sinking sun streamed through it and glittered in
a thousand prismatic colors upon the dripping groves and the prostrate
grass. The pools in the tent dwindled and sunk into the saturated soil.
But all our hopes were delusive. Scarcely had night set in, when the
tumult broke forth anew. The thunder here is not like the tame thunder
of the Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash directly above our
heads, it roared over the boundless waste of prairie, seeming to roll
around the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful
reverberation. The lightning flashed all night, playing with its livid
glare upon the neighboring trees, revealing the vast expanse of the
plain, and then leaving us shut in as by a palpable wall of darkness.
It did not disturb us much. Now and then a peal awakened us, and made us
conscious of the electric battle that was raging, and of the floods that
dashed upon the stanch canvas over our heads. We lay upon india-rubber
cloths, placed between our blankets and the soil. For a while they
excluded the water to admiration; but when at length it accumulated and
began to run over the edges, they served equally well to retain it, so
that toward the end of the night we were unconsciously reposing in small
pools of rain.
On finally awaking in the morning the prospect was not a cheerful one.
The rain no longer poured in torrents; but it pattered with a quiet
pertinacity upon the strained and saturated canvas. We disengaged
ourselves from our blankets, every fiber of which glistened with little
beadlike drops of water, and looked out in vain hope of discovering some
token of fair weather. The clouds, in lead-colored volumes, rested upon
the dismal verge of the prairie, or hung sluggishly overhead, while the
earth wore an aspect no more attractive than the heavens, exhibiting
nothing but pools of water, grass beaten down, and mud well trampled by
our mules and horses. Our companions’ tent, with an air of forlorn
and passive misery, and their wagons in like manner, drenched and
woe-begone, stood not far off. The captain was just returning from his
morning’s inspection of the horses. He stalked through the mist and
rain, with his plaid around his shoulders; his little pipe, dingy as an
antiquarian relic, projecting from beneath his mustache, and his brother
Jack at his heels.
“Good-morning, captain.”
“Good-morning to your honors,” said the captain, affecting the Hibernian
accent; but at that instant, as he stooped to enter the tent, he tripped
upon the cords at the entrance, and pitched forward against the guns
which were strapped around the pole in the center.
“You are nice men, you are!” said he, after an ejaculation not necessary
to be recorded, “to set a man-trap before your door every morning to
catch your visitors.”
Then he sat down upon Henry Chatillon’s saddle. We tossed a piece of
buffalo robe to Jack, who was looking about in some embarrassment. He
spread it on the ground, and took his seat, with a stolid countenance,
at his brother’s side.
“Exhilarating weather, captain!”
“Oh, delightful, delightful!” replied the captain. “I knew it would be
so; so much for starting yesterday at noon! I knew how it would turn
out; and I said so at the time.”
“You said just the contrary to us. We were in no hurry, and only moved
because you insisted on it.”
“Gentlemen,” said the captain, taking his pipe from his mouth with an
air of extreme gravity, “it was no plan of mine. There is a man among us
who is determined to have everything his own way. You may express your
opinion; but don’t expect him to listen. You may be as reasonable as
you like: oh, it all goes for nothing! That man is resolved to rule the
roost and he’ll set his face against any plan that he didn’t think of
himself.”
The captain puffed for a while at his pipe, as if meditating upon his
grievances; then he began again:
“For twenty years I have been in the British army; and in all that time
I never had half so much dissension, and quarreling, and nonsense, as
since I have been on this cursed prairie. He’s the most uncomfortable
man I ever met.”
“Yes,” said Jack; “and don’t you know, Bill, how he drank up all the
coffee last night, and put the rest by for himself till the morning!”
“He pretends to know everything,” resumed the captain; “nobody must give
orders but he! It’s, oh! we must do this; and, oh! we must do that; and
the tent must be pitched here, and the horses must be picketed there;
for nobody knows as well as he does.”
We were a little surprised at this disclosure of domestic dissensions
among our allies, for though we knew of their existence, we were not
aware of their extent. The persecuted captain seeming wholly at a loss
as to the course of conduct that he should pursue, we recommended him to
adopt prompt and energetic measures; but all his military experience
had failed to teach him the indispensable lesson to be “hard,” when the
emergency requires it.
“For twenty years,” he repeated, “I have been in the British army, and
in that time I have been intimately acquainted with some two hundred
officers, young and old, and I never yet quarreled with any man. Oh,
‘anything for a quiet life!’ that’s my maxim.”
We intimated that the prairie was hardly the place to enjoy a quiet
life, but that, in the present circumstances, the best thing he could
do toward securing his wished-for tranquillity, was immediately to put
a period to the nuisance that disturbed it. But again the captain’s
easy good-nature recoiled from the task. The somewhat vigorous measures
necessary to gain the desired result were utterly repugnant to him; he
preferred to pocket his grievances, still retaining the privilege of
grumbling about them. “Oh, anything for a quiet life!” he said again,
circling back to his favorite maxim.
But to glance at the previous history of our transatlantic confederates.
The captain had sold his commission, and was living in bachelor ease
and dignity in his paternal halls, near Dublin. He hunted, fished, rode
steeple-chases, ran races, and talked of his former exploits. He
was surrounded with the trophies of his rod and gun; the walls were
plentifully garnished, he told us, with moose-horns and deer-horns,
bear-skins, and fox-tails; for the captain’s double-barreled rifle had
seen service in Canada and Jamaica; he had killed salmon in Nova Scotia,
and trout, by his own account, in all the streams of the three kingdoms.
But in an evil hour a seductive stranger came from London; no less a
person than R., who, among other multitudinous wanderings, had once been
upon the western prairies, and naturally enough was anxious to visit
them again. The captain’s imagination was inflamed by the pictures of a
hunter’s paradise that his guest held forth; he conceived an ambition
to add to his other trophies the horns of a buffalo, and the claws of
a grizzly bear; so he and R. struck a league to travel in company. Jack
followed his brother, as a matter of course. Two weeks on board the
Atlantic steamer brought them to Boston; in two weeks more of hard
traveling they reached St. Louis, from which a ride of six days
carried them to the frontier; and here we found them, in full tide of
preparation for their journey.
We had been throughout on terms of intimacy with the captain, but
R., the motive power of our companions’ branch of the expedition, was
scarcely known to us. His voice, indeed, might be heard incessantly; but
at camp he remained chiefly within the tent, and on the road he either
rode by himself, or else remained in close conversation with his friend
Wright, the muleteer. As the captain left the tent that morning, I
observed R. standing by the fire, and having nothing else to do, I
determined to ascertain, if possible, what manner of man he was. He had
a book under his arm, but just at present he was engrossed in actively
superintending the operations of Sorel, the hunter, who was cooking some
corn-bread over the coals for breakfast. R. was a well-formed and rather
good-looking man, some thirty years old; considerably younger than the
captain. He wore a beard and mustache of the oakum complexion, and
his attire was altogether more elegant than one ordinarily sees on the
prairie. He wore his cap on one side of his head; his checked shirt,
open in front, was in very neat order, considering the circumstances,
and his blue pantaloons, of the John Bull cut, might once have figured
in Bond Street.
“Turn over that cake, man! turn it over, quick! Don’t you see it
burning?”
“It ain’t half done,” growled Sorel, in the amiable tone of a whipped
bull-dog.
“It is. Turn it over, I tell you!”
Sorel, a strong, sullen-looking Canadian, who from having spent his life
among the wildest and most remote of the Indian tribes, had imbibed much
of their dark, vindictive spirit, looked ferociously up, as if he longed
to leap upon his bourgeois and throttle him; but he obeyed the order,
coming from so experienced an artist.
“It was a good idea of yours,” said I, seating myself on the tongue of a
wagon, “to bring Indian meal with you.”
“Yes, yes” said R. “It’s good bread for the prairie--good bread for the
prairie. I tell you that’s burning again.”
Here he stooped down, and unsheathing the silver-mounted hunting-knife
in his belt, began to perform the part of cook himself; at the same
time requesting me to hold for a moment the book under his arm, which
interfered with the exercise of these important functions. I opened
it; it was “Macaulay’s Lays”; and I made some remark, expressing my
admiration of the work.
“Yes, yes; a pretty good thing. Macaulay can do better than that though.
I know him very well. I have traveled with him. Where was it we first
met--at Damascus? No, no; it was in Italy.”
“So,” said I, “you have been over the same ground with your countryman,
the author of ‘Eothen’? There has been some discussion in America as to
who he is. I have heard Milne’s name mentioned.”
“Milne’s? Oh, no, no, no; not at all. It was Kinglake; Kinglake’s the
man. I know him very well; that is, I have seen him.”
Here Jack C., who stood by, interposed a remark (a thing not common with
him), observing that he thought the weather would become fair before
twelve o’clock.
“It’s going to rain all day,” said R., “and clear up in the middle of
the night.”
Just then the clouds began to dissipate in a very unequivocal manner;
but Jack, not caring to defend his point against so authoritative a
declaration, walked away whistling, and we resumed our conversation.
“Borrow, the author of ‘The Bible in Spain,’ I presume you know him
too?”
“Oh, certainly; I know all those men. By the way, they told me that one
of your American writers, Judge Story, had died lately. I edited some of
his works in London; not without faults, though.”
Here followed an erudite commentary on certain points of law, in which
he particularly animadverted on the errors into which he considered that
the judge had been betrayed. At length, having touched successively
on an infinite variety of topics, I found that I had the happiness
of discovering a man equally competent to enlighten me upon them all,
equally an authority on matters of science or literature, philosophy or
fashion. The part I bore in the conversation was by no means a prominent
one; it was only necessary to set him going, and when he had run long
enough upon one topic, to divert him to another and lead him on to pour
out his heaps of treasure in succession.
“What has that fellow been saying to you?” said Shaw, as I returned to
the tent. “I have heard nothing but his talking for the last half-hour.”
R. had none of the peculiar traits of the ordinary “British snob”;
his absurdities were all his own, belonging to no particular nation or
clime. He was possessed with an active devil that had driven him over
land and sea, to no great purpose, as it seemed; for although he had the
usual complement of eyes and ears, the avenues between these organs and
his brain appeared remarkably narrow and untrodden. His energy was much
more conspicuous than his wisdom; but his predominant characteristic was
a magnanimous ambition to exercise on all occasions an awful rule and
supremacy, and this propensity equally displayed itself, as the reader
will have observed, whether the matter in question was the baking of a
hoe-cake or a point of international law. When such diverse elements
as he and the easy-tempered captain came in contact, no wonder some
commotion ensued; R. rode roughshod, from morning till night, over his
military ally.
At noon the sky was clear and we set out, trailing through mud and slime
six inches deep. That night we were spared the customary infliction of
the shower bath.
On the next afternoon we were moving slowly along, not far from a patch
of woods which lay on the right. Jack C. rode a little in advance;
The livelong day he had not spoke;
when suddenly he faced about, pointed to the woods, and roared out to
his brother:
“O Bill! here’s a cow!”
The captain instantly galloped forward, and he and Jack made a vain
attempt to capture the prize; but the cow, with a well-grounded distrust
of their intentions, took refuge among the trees. R. joined them, and
they soon drove her out. We watched their evolutions as they galloped
around here, trying in vain to noose her with their trail-ropes, which
they had converted into lariettes for the occasion. At length they
resorted to milder measures, and the cow was driven along with the
party. Soon after the usual thunderstorm came up, the wind blowing with
such fury that the streams of rain flew almost horizontally along the
prairie, roaring like a cataract. The horses turned tail to the storm,
and stood hanging their heads, bearing the infliction with an air of
meekness and resignation; while we drew our heads between our shoulders,
and crouched forward, so as to make our backs serve as a pent-house
for the rest of our persons. Meanwhile the cow, taking advantage of the
tumult, ran off, to the great discomfiture of the captain, who seemed to
consider her as his own especial prize, since she had been discovered by
Jack. In defiance of the storm, he pulled his cap tight over his brows,
jerked a huge buffalo pistol from his holster, and set out at full speed
after her. This was the last we saw of them for some time, the mist and
rain making an impenetrable veil; but at length we heard the captain’s
shout, and saw him looming through the tempest, the picture of a
Hibernian cavalier, with his cocked pistol held aloft for safety’s sake,
and a countenance of anxiety and excitement. The cow trotted before him,
but exhibited evident signs of an intention to run off again, and the
captain was roaring to us to head her. But the rain had got in behind
our coat collars, and was traveling over our necks in numerous little
streamlets, and being afraid to move our heads, for fear of admitting
more, we sat stiff and immovable, looking at the captain askance, and
laughing at his frantic movements. At last the cow made a sudden plunge
and ran off; the captain grasped his pistol firmly, spurred his horse,
and galloped after, with evident designs of mischief. In a moment we
heard the faint report, deadened by the rain, and then the conqueror
and his victim reappeared, the latter shot through the body, and quite
helpless. Not long after the storm moderated and we advanced again. The
cow walked painfully along under the charge of Jack, to whom the captain
had committed her, while he himself rode forward in his old capacity
of vedette. We were approaching a long line of trees, that followed
a stream stretching across our path, far in front, when we beheld the
vedette galloping toward us, apparently much excited, but with a broad
grin on his face.
“Let that cow drop behind!” he shouted to us; “here’s her owners!” And
in fact, as we approached the line of trees, a large white object, like
a tent, was visible behind them. On approaching, however, we found,
instead of the expected Mormon camp, nothing but the lonely prairie, and
a large white rock standing by the path. The cow therefore resumed her
place in our procession. She walked on until we encamped, when R. firmly
approaching with his enormous English double-barreled rifle, calmly and
deliberately took aim at her heart, and discharged into it first one
bullet and then the other. She was then butchered on the most approved
principles of woodcraft, and furnished a very welcome item to our
somewhat limited bill of fare.
In a day or two more we reached the river called the “Big Blue.” By
titles equally elegant, almost all the streams of this region are
designated. We had struggled through ditches and little brooks all that
morning; but on traversing the dense woods that lined the banks of the
Blue, we found more formidable difficulties awaited us, for the stream,
swollen by the rains, was wide, deep, and rapid.
No sooner were we on the spot than R. had flung off his clothes, and was
swimming across, or splashing through the shallows, with the end of a
rope between his teeth. We all looked on in admiration, wondering what
might be the design of this energetic preparation; but soon we heard him
shouting: “Give that rope a turn round that stump! You, Sorel: do you
hear? Look sharp now, Boisverd! Come over to this side, some of you, and
help me!” The men to whom these orders were directed paid not the
least attention to them, though they were poured out without pause
or intermission. Henry Chatillon directed the work, and it proceeded
quietly and rapidly. R.’s sharp brattling voice might have been
heard incessantly; and he was leaping about with the utmost activity,
multiplying himself, after the manner of great commanders, as if his
universal presence and supervision were of the last necessity. His
commands were rather amusingly inconsistent; for when he saw that the
men would not do as he told them, he wisely accommodated himself
to circumstances, and with the utmost vehemence ordered them to do
precisely that which they were at the time engaged upon, no doubt
recollecting the story of Mahomet and the refractory mountain.
Shaw smiled significantly; R. observed it, and, approaching with a
countenance of lofty indignation, began to vapor a little, but was
instantly reduced to silence.
The raft was at length complete. We piled our goods upon it, with
the exception of our guns, which each man chose to retain in his own
keeping. Sorel, Boisverd, Wright and Delorier took their stations at
the four corners, to hold it together, and swim across with it; and in
a moment more, all our earthly possessions were floating on the turbid
waters of the Big Blue. We sat on the bank, anxiously watching the
result, until we saw the raft safe landed in a little cove far down on
the opposite bank. The empty wagons were easily passed across; and then
each man mounting a horse, we rode through the stream, the stray animals
following of their own accord.