a moment, then the old man said the two would ride along with me for a
few miles, as he had to go in that direction to look for new hog-feed.
I despatched my two men with the pack-horse, directing them to follow
the trail, then saddled my Kaweah and waited for the Newtys. The old man
saddled a shaggy little mountain pony for himself, and for Susan
strapped a sheepskin upon the back of a young and fiery mustang colt.
While they were getting ready, I made my horse fast to a stake and
stepped over to bid good-by to Mrs. Newty. I said to her, in tones of
deference, “I have come to bid you good-by, madam, and when I get back
this way I hope you will be kind enough to tell me one or two really
first-rate coon-stories. I am quite ignorant of that animal, having
been raised in countries where they are extremely rare, and I would like
to know more of what seems to be to you a creature of such interest.”
The wet, gray eyes relaxed, as I fancied, a trifle of their asperity; a
faint kindle seemed to light them for an instant as she asked, “You
never see coons catch frogs in a spring branch?”
“No, madam,” I answered.
“Well, I wonder! Well, take care of yourself, and when you come back
this way stop along with us, and we’ll kill a yearlin’, and I’ll tell
you about a coon that used to live under grandfather’s barn.” She
actually offered me her hand, which I grasped and shook in a friendly
manner, chilled to the very bone with its damp coldness.
Mr. Newty mounted, and asked me if I was ready. Susan stood holding her
prancing mustang. To put that girl on her horse after the ordinary plan
would have required the strength of Samson or the use of a step-ladder,
neither of which I possessed; so I waited for events to develop
themselves. The girl stepped to the left side of her horse, twisted one
hand in the mane, laying the other upon his haunches, and, crouching for
a jump, sailed through the air, alighting upon the sheepskin. The horse
reared, and Susan, twisting herself round, came right side up with her
knee upon the sheepskin, shouting, as she did so, “I guess you don’t get
me off, sir!” I jumped upon Kaweah, and our two horses sprang forward
together, Susan waving her hand to her father, and crying, “Come along
after, old man!” and to her mother, “Take care of yourself!” which is
the Pike County for _au revoir!_ Her mustang tugged at the bit, and
bounded wildly into the air. We reached a stream-bank at full gallop,
the horses clearing it at a bound, sweeping on over the green floor and
under the magnificent shadow of the forest. Newty, following us at an
humble trot, slopped through the creek, and when I last looked he had
nearly reached the edge of the wood.
I could but admire the unconscious excellence of Susan’s riding, her
firm, immovable seat, and the perfect coolness with which she held the
fiery horse. This quite absorbed me for five minutes, when she at last
broke the silence by the laconic inquiry, “Does yourn buck?” To which I
added the reply that he had only occasionally been guilty of that
indiscretion. She then informed me that the first time she had mounted
the colt he had “nearly bucked her to pieces; he had jumped and jounced
till she was plum tuckered out” before he had given up.
Gradually reining the horses down and inducing them to walk, we rode
side by side through the most magnificent forest of the Sierras, and I
determined to probe Susan to see whether there were not, even in the
most latent condition, some germs of the appreciation of nature. I
looked from base to summit of the magnificent shafts, at the green
plumes which traced themselves against the sky, the exquisite fall of
purple shadows and golden light upon trunks, at the labyrinth of glowing
flowers, at the sparkling whiteness of the mountain brook, and up to the
clear, matchless blue that vaulted over us, then turned to Susan’s
plain, honest face, and gradually introduced the subject of trees. Ideas
of lumber and utilitarian notions of fence-rails were uppermost in her
mind; but I briefly penetrated what proved to be only a superficial
stratum of the materialistic, and asked her point blank if she did not
admire their stately symmetry. A strange, new light gleamed in her eye
as I described to her the growth and distribution of forests, and the
marvellous change in their character and aspects as they approached the
tropics. The palm and the pine, as I worked them up to her, really
filled her with delight, and prompted numerous interested and
intelligent queries, showing that she thoroughly comprehended my drift.
In the pleasant hour of our chat I learned a new lesson of the presence
of undeveloped seed in the human mind.
Mr. Newty at last came alongside, and remarked that he must stop about
here; “but,” he added, “Susan will go on with you about half a mile, and
come back and join me here after I have taken a look at the feed.”
As he rode out into the forest a little way, he called me to him, and I
was a little puzzled at what seemed to be the first traces of
embarrassment I had seen in his manner.
“You’ll take care of yourself, now, won’t you?” he asked. I tried to
convince him that I would.
A slight pause.
“You’ll take care of yourself, won’t you?”
He might rely on it, I was going to say.
He added, “Thet--thet--thet man what gits Susan _has half the hogs_!”
Then turning promptly away, he spurred the pony, and his words as he
rode into the forest were, “Take good care of yourself!”
Susan and I rode on for half a mile, until we reached the brow of a long
descent, which she gave me to understand was her limit.
We shook hands and I bade her good-by, and as I trotted off these words
fell sweetly upon my ear, “Say, you’ll take good care of yourself, won’t
you, say?”
I took pains not to overtake my camp-men, wishing to be alone; and as I
rode for hour after hour the picture of this family stood before me in
all its deformity of outline, all its poverty of detail, all its
darkness of future, and I believe I thought of it too gravely to enjoy
as I might the subtle light of comedy which plays about these hard,
repulsive figures.
In conversation I had caught the clew of a better past. Newty’s father
was a New-Englander, and he spoke of him as a man of intelligence and,
as I should judge, of some education. Mrs. Newty’s father had been an
Arkansas judge, not perhaps the most enlightened of men, but still very
far in advance of herself. The conspicuous retrograde seemed to me an
example of the most hopeless phase of human life. If, as I suppose, we
may all sooner or later give in our adhesion to the Darwinian view of
development, does not the same law which permits such splendid scope for
the better open up to us also possible gulfs of degradation, and are not
these chronic emigrants whose broken-down wagons and weary faces greet
you along the dusty highways of the far West melancholy examples of
beings who have forever lost the conservatism of home and the power of
improvement?
VI
KAWEAH’S RUN
1864
After trying hard to climb Mount Whitney without success, and having
returned to the plains, I enjoyed my two days’ rest in hot Visalia,
where were fruits and people, and where I at length thawed out the last
traces of alpine cold, and recovered from hard work and the sinful bread
of my fortnight’s campaign. I considered it happiness to spend my whole
day on the quiet hotel veranda, accustoming myself again to such
articles as chairs and newspapers, and watching with unexpected pleasure
the few village girls who flitted about during the day, and actually
found time after sunset to chat with favored fellows beneath the wide
oaks of the street-side. Especially interesting seemed the rustic sister
of whom I bought figs at a garden gate, thinking her, as I did, _comme
il faut_, though recollecting later that her gown was of forgotten mode,
and that she carried a suggestion of ancient history in the obsolete
style of her back hair.
Everybody was of interest to me, not excepting the two Mexican
mountaineers who monopolized the agent at Wells, Fargo & Co.’s office,
causing me delay. They were transacting some little item of business,
and stood loafing by the counter, mechanically jingling huge spurs and
shrugging their shoulders as they chatted in a dull, sleepy way. At the
door they paused, keeping up quite a lively dispute, without apparently
noticing me as I drew a small bag of gold and put it in my pocket. There
was no especial reason why I should remark the stolid, brutal cast of
their countenances, as I thought them not worse than the average
Californian greaser; but it occurred to me that one might as well guess
at a geological formation as to attempt to judge the age of
mountaineers, because they get very early in life a fixed expression,
which is deepened by continual rough weathering and undisturbed
accumulations of dirt. I observed them enough to see that the elder was
a man of middle height, of wiry, light figure and thin, hawk visage; a
certain angular sharpness making itself noticeable about the shoulders
and arms, which tapered to small, almost refined hands. A mere fringe of
perfectly straight, black beard followed the curve of his chin, tangling
itself at the ear with shaggy, unkempt locks of hair. He wore an
ordinary, stiff-brimmed Spanish sombrero, and the inevitable greasy red
sash performed its rather difficult task of holding together flannel
shirt and buckskin breeches, besides half covering with folds a long,
narrow knife.
His companion struck me as a half-breed Indian, somewhere about eighteen
years of age, his beardless face showing deep, brutal lines, and a mouth
which was a mere crease between hideously heavy lips. Blood stained the
rowels of his spurs; an old felt hat, crumpled and ragged, slouched
forward over his eyes, doing its best to hide the man.
I thought them a hard couple, and summed up their traits as stolidity
and utter cruelty.
I was pleased that the stable-man who saddled Kaweah was unable to
answer their inquiry where I was going, and annoyed when I heard the
hotel-keeper inform them that I started that day for Millerton.
Leaving behind us people and village, Kaweah bore me out under the
grateful shade of oaks, among rambling settlements and fields of
harvested grain, whose pale Naples-yellow stubble and stacks contrasted
finely with the deep foliage, and served as a pretty groundwork for
stripes of vivid green which marked the course of numberless irrigating
streams. Low cottages, overarched with boughs and hemmed in with weed
jungles, margined my road. I saw at the gate many children who looked me
out of countenance with their serious, stupid stare; they were the least
self-conscious of any human beings I have seen.
Trees and settlements and children were soon behind us, an open plain
stretching on in front without visible limit,--a plain slightly browned
with the traces of dried herbaceous plants, and unrelieved by other
object than distant processions of trees traced from some cañon gate of
the Sierras westward across to the middle valley, or occasional bands of
restless cattle marching solemnly about in search of food. It was not
pleasant to realize that I had one hundred and twenty miles of this
lonely sort of landscape ahead of me, nor that my only companion was
Kaweah; for with all his splendid powers and rare qualities of instinct
there was not the slightest evidence of response or affection in his
behavior. Friendly toleration was the highest gift he bestowed on me,
though I think he had great personal enjoyment in my habits as a rider.
The only moments when we ever seemed thoroughly _en rapport_ were when I
crowded him down to a wild run, using the spur and shouting at him
loudly, or when in our friendly races homeward toward camp, through the
forest, I put him at a leap where he even doubted his own power. At such
times I could communicate ideas to him with absolute certainty. He would
stop, or turn, or gather himself for a leap, at my will, as it seemed to
me, by some sort of magnetic communication; but I always paid dearly for
this in long, tiresome efforts to calm him.
With the long, level road ahead of me, I dared not attack its monotony
by any unusual riding, and having settled him at our regular travelling
trot,--a gait of about six miles an hour,--I forgot all about the dreary
expanse of plain, and gave myself up to quiet reverie. About dusk we had
reached the King’s River Ferry.
An ugly, unpainted house, perched upon the bluff, and flanked by barns
and outbuildings of disorderly aspect, overlooked the ferry. Not a sign
of green vegetation could be seen, except certain half-dried willows
standing knee-deep along the river’s margin, and that dark pine zone
lifted upon the Sierras in eastern distance.
It is desperate punishment to stay through a summer at one of these
plain ranches, there to be beat upon by an unrelenting sun in the midst
of a scorched landscape and forced to breathe sirocco and sand; yet
there are found plenty of people who are glad to become master of one of
these ferries or stage stations, their life for the most part silent,
and as unvaried as its outlook, given over wholly to permanent and
vacant loafing.
Supper was announced by a business-like youth, who came out upon the
veranda and vigorously rang a tavern bell, although I was the only
auditor, and likely enough the only person within twenty miles.
I envy my horse at such times; the graminivorous have us at a
disadvantage, for one revolts at the _cuisine_, although disliking to
insult the house by quietly shying the food out of the window. I arose
hungry from the table, remembering that some eminent hygeist has avowed
that by so doing one has achieved sanitary success.
As I walked over to see Kaweah at the corral, I glanced down the river,
and saw, perhaps a quarter of a mile below, two horsemen ride down our
bank, spur their horses into the stream, swim to the other side, and
struggle up a steep bank, disappearing among bunches of cottonwood trees
near the river.
So dangerous and unusual a proceeding could not have been to save the
half-dollar ferriage. There was something about their seat, and the
cruel way they drove home their spurs, that, in default of better
reasons, made me think them Mexicans.
The whole Tulare plain is the home of nomadic ranchers, who, as
pasturage changes, drive about their herds of horses and cattle from
range to range; and as the wolves prowl around for prey, so a class of
Mexican highwaymen rob and murder them from one year’s end to the other.
I judged the swimmers were bent on some such errand, and lay down on the
ground by Kaweah, to guard him, rolling myself in my soldier’s
great-coat, and slept with my saddle for a pillow.
Once or twice the animal waked me up by stamping restively, but I could
perceive no cause for alarm, and slept on comfortably until a little
before sunrise, when I rose, took a plunge in the river, and hurriedly
dressed myself for the day’s ride; the ferryman, who had promised to put
me across at dawn, was already at his post, and, after permitting Kaweah
to drink a deep draught, I rode him out on the ferry-boat, and was
quickly at the other side.
The road for two or three miles ascends the right bank of the river,
approaching in places quite closely to the edge of its bluffs. I greatly
enjoyed my ride, watching the Sierra sky line high and black against a
golden circle of dawn, and seeing it mirrored faithfully in still
reaches of river, and pleasing myself with the continually changing
foreground, as group after group of tall, motionless cottonwoods was
passed. The willows, too, are pleasing in their entire harmony with the
scene, and the air they have of protecting bank and shore from torrent
and sun. The plain stretched off to my left into dusky distance, and
ahead in a bare, smooth expanse, dreary by its monotony, yet not
altogether repulsive in the pearly obscurity of the morning. In
midsummer these plains are as hot as the Sahara through the long,
blinding day; but after midnight there comes a delicious blandness upon
the air, a suggestion of freshness and upspringing life, which renews
vitality within you.
Kaweah showed the influence of this condition in the sensitive play of
ears and toss of head, and in his free, spirited stride. I was
experimenting on his sensitiveness to sounds, and had found that his
ears turned back at the faintest whisper, when suddenly his head rose,
he looked sharply forward toward a clump of trees on the river-bank, one
hundred and fifty yards in front of us, where a quick glance revealed to
me a camp-fire and two men hurrying saddles upon their horses,--a gray
and a sorrel.
They were Spaniards,--the same who had swum King’s River the afternoon
before, and, as it flashed on me finally, the two whom I had studied so
attentively at Visalia. Then I at once saw their purpose was to waylay
me, and made up my mind to give them a lively run. The road followed the
bank up to their camp in an easterly direction, and then, turning a
sharp right angle to the north, led out upon the open plain, leaving the
river finally.
I decided to strike across, and threw Kaweah into a sharp trot.
I glanced at my girth and then at the bright copper upon my pistol, and
settled myself firmly in the saddle.
Finding that they could not saddle quickly enough to attack me mounted,
the older villain grabbed a shot-gun, and sprung out to head me off, his
comrade meantime tightening the cinches.
I turned Kaweah farther off to the left, and tossed him a little more
rein, which he understood and sprang out into a gallop.
The robber brought his gun to his shoulder, covered me, and yelled, in
good English, “Hold on, you ----!” At that instant his companion dashed
up, leading the other horse. In another moment they were mounted and
after me, yelling, “Hu-hla” to the mustangs, plunging in the spurs, and
shouting occasional volleys of oaths.
By this time I had regained the road, which lay before me traced over
the blank, objectless plain in vanishing perspective. Fifteen miles lay
between me and a station; Kaweah and pistol were my only defence, yet at
that moment I felt a thrill of pleasure, a wild moment of inspiration,
almost worth the danger to experience.
I glanced over my shoulder and found that the Spaniards were crowding
their horses to their fullest speed; their hoofs, rattling on the dry
plain, were accompanied by inarticulate noises, like the cries of
bloodhounds. Kaweah comprehended the situation. I could feel his grand
legs gather under me, and the iron muscles contract with excitement; he
tugged at the bit, shook his bridle-chains, and flung himself
impatiently into the air.
It flashed upon me that perhaps they had confederates concealed in some
ditch far in advance of me, and that the plan was to crowd me through at
fullest speed, giving up the chase to new men and fresh horses; and I
resolved to save Kaweah to the utmost, and only allow him a speed which
should keep me out of gunshot. So I held him firmly, and reserved my
spur for the last emergency. Still we fairly flew over the plain, and I
said to myself, as the clatter of hoofs and din of my pursuers rang in
my ears now and then, as the freshening breeze hurried it forward, that,
if those brutes got me, there was nothing in blood and brains; for
Kaweah was a prince beside their mustangs, and I ought to be worth two
villains.
For the first twenty minutes the road was hard and smooth and level;
after that gentle, shallow undulations began, and at last, at brief
intervals, were sharp, narrow arroyos (ditches eight or nine feet wide).
I reined Kaweah in, and brought him up sharply on their bottoms, giving
him the bit to spring up on the other side; but he quickly taught me
better, and, gathering, took them easily, without my feeling it in his
stride.
The hot sun had arisen. I saw with anxiety that the tremendous speed
began to tell painfully on Kaweah. Foam tinged with blood fell from his
mouth, and sweat rolled in streams from his whole body, and now and then
he drew a deep-heaving breath. I leaned down and felt of the cinch to
see if it had slipped forward, but, as I had saddled him with great
care, it kept its true place, so I had only to fear the greasers behind,
or a new relay ahead. I was conscious of plenty of reserved speed in
Kaweah, whose powerful run was already distancing their fatigued
mustangs.
As we bounded down a roll of the plain, a cloud of dust sprang from a
ravine directly in front of me, and two black objects lifted themselves
in the sand. I drew my pistol, cocked it, whirled Kaweah to the left,
plunging by and clearing them by about six feet; a thrill of relief came
as I saw the long, white horns of Spanish cattle gleam above the dust.
Unconsciously I restrained Kaweah too much, and in a moment the
Spaniards were crowding down upon me at a fearful rate. On they came,
the crash of their spurs and the clatter of their horses distinctly
heard; and as I had so often compared the beats of chronometers, I
unconsciously noted that while Kaweah’s, although painful, yet came with
regular power, the mustangs’ respiration was quick, spasmodic, and
irregular. I compared the intervals of the two mustangs, and found that
one breathed better than the other, and then, upon counting the best
mustang with Kaweah, found that he breathed nine breaths to Kaweah’s
seven. In two or three minutes I tried it again, finding the relation
ten to seven; then I felt the victory, and I yelled to Kaweah. The thin
ears shot flat back upon his neck; lower and lower he lay down to his
run; I flung him a loose rein, and gave him a friendly pat on the
withers. It was a glorious burst of speed; the wind rushed by and the
plain swept under us with dizzying swiftness. I shouted again, and the
thing of nervous life under me bounded on wilder and faster, till I
could feel his spine thrill as with shocks from a battery. I managed to
look round,--a delicate matter at speed,--and saw, far behind, the
distanced villains, both dismounted, and one horse fallen.
In an instant I drew Kaweah in to a gentle trot, looking around every
moment, lest they should come on me unawares. In a half-mile I reached
the station, and I was cautiously greeted by a man who sat by the barn
door, with a rifle across his knees. He had seen me come over the plain,
and had also seen the Spanish horse fall. Not knowing but he might be in
league with the robbers, I gave him a careful glance before dismounting,
and was completely reassured by an expression of terror which had
possession of his countenance.
I sprang to the ground and threw off the saddle, and after a word or two
with the man, who proved to be the sole occupant of this station, we
fell to work together upon Kaweah, my cocked pistol and his rifle lying
close at hand. We sponged the creature’s mouth, and, throwing a sheet
over him, walked him regularly up and down for about three quarters of
an hour, and then taking him upon the open plain, where we could scan
the horizon in all directions, gave him a thorough grooming. I never saw
him look so magnificently as when we led him down to the creek to drink:
his skin was like satin, and the veins of his head and neck stood out
firm and round like whip-cords.
In the excitement of taking care of Kaweah I had scarcely paid any
attention to my host, but after two hours, when the horse was quietly
munching his hay, I listened attentively to his story.
The two Spaniards had lurked round his station during the night, guns in
hand, and had made an attempt to steal a pair of stage horses from the
stable, but, as he had watched with his rifle, they finally rode away.
By his account I knew them to be my pursuers; they had here, however,
ridden two black mustangs, and had doubtless changed their mount for the
sole purpose of waylaying me.