1833. In the spring the camp was visited by a party of twenty Blackfeet,
who drove off most of the horses; and among the stolen ones, Bridger's
favorite race-horse, Grohean, a Camanche steed of great speed and
endurance. To retake the horses, and if possible punish the thieves, a
company of the gamest trappers, thirty in number, including Meek, and
Kit Carson, who not long before had joined the Rocky Mountain Company,
was dispatched on their trail. They had not traveled long before they
came up with the Blackfeet, but the horses were nowhere to be seen,
having been secreted, after the manner of these thieves, in some defile
of the mountains, until the skirmish was over which they knew well
enough to anticipate. Accordingly when the trappers came up, the wily
savages were prepared for them. Their numbers were inferior to that of
the whites; accordingly they assumed an innocent and peace-desiring air,
while their head man advanced with the inevitable peace-pipe, to have a
"talk." But as their talk was a tissue of lies, the trappers soon lost
patience, and a quarrel quickly arose. The Indians betook themselves to
the defences which were selected beforehand, and a fight began, which
without giving to either party the victory of arms, ended in the killing
of two or three of the Blackfeet, and the wounding very severely of Kit
Carson. The firing ceased with nightfall; and when morning came, as
usual the Blackfeet were gone, and the trappers returned to camp without
their horses.
The lost animals were soon replaced by purchase from the Nez Perces, and
the company divided up into brigades, some destined for the country east
of the mountains, and others for the south and west. In this year Meek
rose a grade above the hired trapper, and became one of the order
denominated skin trappers. These, like the hired trappers, depend upon
the company to furnish them an outfit; but do not receive regular wages,
as do the others. They trap for themselves, only agreeing to sell their
beaver to the company which furnishes the outfit, and to no other. In
this capacity, our Joe, and a few associates, hunted this spring, in the
Snake River and Salt Lake countries; returning as usual to the annual
rendezvous, which was appointed this summer to meet on Green River. Here
were the Rocky Mountain and American Companies; the St. Louis Company,
under Capt. Wm. Sublette and his friend Campbell; the usual camp of
Indian allies; and, a few miles distant, that of Captain Bonneville. In
addition to all these, was a small company belonging to Capt. Stuart, an
Englishman of noble family, who was traveling in the far west only to
gratify his own love of wild adventure, and admiration of all that is
grand and magnificent in nature. With him was an artist named Miller,
and several servants; but he usually traveled in company with one or
another of the fur companies; thus enjoying their protection, and at the
same time gaining a knowledge of the habits of mountain life.
The rendezvous, at this time, furnished him a striking example of some
of the ways of mountain-men, least to their honorable fame; and we fear
we must confess that our friend Joe Meek, who had been gathering laurels
as a valiant hunter and trapper during the three or four years of his
apprenticeship, was also becoming fitted, by frequent practice, to
graduate in some of the vices of camp life, especially the one of
conviviality during rendezvous. Had he not given his permission, we
should not perhaps have said what he says of himself, that he was at
such times often very "powerful drunk."
During the indulgence of these excesses, while at this rendezvous, there
occurred one of those incidents of wilderness life which make the blood
creep with horror. Twelve of the men were bitten by a mad wolf, which
hung about the camp for two or three nights. Two of these were seized
with madness in camp, sometime afterwards, and ran off into the
mountains, where they perished. One was attacked by the paroxysm while
on a hunt; when, throwing himself off his horse, he struggled and foamed
at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and barking like a wolf. Yet he
retained consciousness enough to warn away his companions, who hastened
in search of assistance; but when they returned he was nowhere to be
found. It was thought that he was seen a day or two afterwards, but no
one could come up with him, and of course, he too, perished. Another
died on his journey to St. Louis; and several died at different times
within the next two years.
At the time, however, immediately following the visit of the wolf to
camp, Captain Stuart was admonishing Meek on the folly of his ways,
telling him that the wolf might easily have bitten him, he was so drunk.
"It would have killed him,--sure, if it hadn't cured him!" said
Meek,--alluding to the belief that alcohol is a remedy for the poison of
hydrophobia.
When sobriety returned, and work was once more to be resumed, Meek
returned with three or four associates to the Salt Lake country, to trap
on the numerous streams that flow down from the mountains to the east of
Salt Lake. He had not been long in this region when he fell in on Bear
River with a company of Bonneville's men, one hundred and eighteen in
number, under Jo Walker, who had been sent to explore the Great Salt
Lake, and the adjacent country; to make charts, keep a journal, and, in
short, make a thorough discovery of all that region. Great expectations
were cherished by the Captain concerning this favorite expedition, which
were, however, utterly blighted, as his historian has recorded. The
disappointment and loss which Bonneville suffered from it, gave a tinge
of prejudice to his delineations of the trapper's character. It was true
that they did not explore Salt Lake; and that they made a long and
expensive journey, collecting but few peltries. It is true also, that
they caroused in true mountain style, while among the Californians: but
that the expedition was unprofitable was due chiefly to the difficulties
attending the exploration of a new country, a large portion of which was
desert and mountain.
But let us not anticipate. When Meek and his companions fell in with Jo
Walker and his company, they resolved to accompany the expedition; for
it was "a feather in a man's cap," and made his services doubly valuable
to have become acquainted with a new country, and fitted himself for a
pilot.
On leaving Bear River, where the hunters took the precaution to lay in a
store of dried meat, the company passed down on the west side of Salt
Lake, and found themselves in the Salt Lake desert, where their store,
insufficiently large, soon became reduced to almost nothing. Here was
experienced again the sufferings to which Meek had once before been
subjected in the Digger country, which, in fact, bounded this desert on
the northwest. "There was," says Bonneville, "neither tree, nor herbage,
nor spring, nor pool, nor running stream; nothing but parched wastes of
sand, where horse and rider were in danger of perishing." Many an
emigrant has since confirmed the truth of this account.
It could not be expected that men would continue on in such a country,
in that direction which offered no change for the better. Discerning at
last a snowy range to the northwest, they traveled in that direction;
pinched with famine, and with tongues swollen out of their mouths with
thirst. They came at last to a small stream, into which both men and
animals plunged to quench their raging thirst.
The instinct of a mule on these desert journeys is something wonderful.
We have heard it related by others besides the mountain-men, that they
will detect the neighborhood of water long before their riders have
discovered a sign; and setting up a gallop, when before they could
hardly walk, will dash into the water up to their necks, drinking in the
life-saving moisture through every pore of the skin, while they
prudently refrain from swallowing much of it. If one of a company has
been off on a hunt for water, and on finding it has let his mule drink,
when he returns to camp, the other animals will gather about it, and
snuff its breath, and even its body, betraying the liveliest interest
and envy. It is easy to imagine that in the case of Jo Walker's company,
not only the animals but the men were eager to steep themselves in the
reviving waters of the first stream which they found on the border of
this weary desert.
It proved to be a tributary of Mary's or Ogden's River, along which the
company pursued their way, trapping as they went, and living upon the
flesh of the beaver. They had now entered upon the same country
inhabited by Digger Indians, in which Milton Sublette's brigade had so
nearly perished with famine the previous year. It was unexplored, and
the natives were as curious about the movements of their white visitors,
as Indians always are on the first appearance of civilized men.
They hung about the camps, offering no offences by day, but contriving
to do a great deal of thieving during the night-time. Each day, for
several days, their numbers increased, until the army which dogged the
trappers by day, and filched from them at night, numbered nearly a
thousand. They had no guns; but carried clubs, and some bows and arrows.
The trappers at length became uneasy at this accumulation of force, even
though they had no fire-arms, for was it not this very style of people,
armed with clubs, that attacked Smith's party on the Umpqua, and killed
all but four?
"We must kill a lot of them, boys," said Jo Walker. "It will never do to
let that crowd get into camp." Accordingly, as the Indians crowded round
at a ford of Mary's River, always a favorite time of attack with the
savages, Walker gave the order to fire, and the whole company poured a
volley into the jostling crowd. The effect was terrible. Seventy-five
Diggers bit the dust; while the others, seized with terror and horror at
this new and instantaneous mode of death, fled howling away, the
trappers pursuing them until satisfied that they were too much
frightened to return. This seemed to Captain Bonneville, when he came to
hear of it, like an unnecessary and ferocious act. But Bonneville was
not an experienced Indian fighter. His views of their character were
much governed by his knowledge of the Flatheads and Nez Perces; and also
by the immunity from harm he enjoyed among the Shoshonies on the Snake
River, where the Hudson's Bay Company had brought them into subjection,
and where even two men might travel in safety at the time of his
residence in that country.
Walker's company continued on down to the main or Humboldt River,
trapping as they went, both for the furs, and for something to eat; and
expecting to find that the river whose course they were following
through these barren plains, would lead them to some more important
river, or to some large lake or inland sea. This was a country entirely
unknown, even to the adventurous traders and trappers of the fur
companies, who avoided it because it was out of the buffalo range; and
because the borders of it, along which they sometimes skirted, were
found to be wanting in water-courses in which beaver might be looked
for. Walker's company therefore, now determined to prosecute their
explorations until they came to some new and profitable beaver grounds.
But after a long march through an inhospitable country they came at last
to where the Humboldt sinks itself in a great swampy lake, in the midst
of deserts of sage-brush. Here was the end of their great expectations.
To the west of them, however, and not far off, rose the lofty summits of
the Sierra Nevada range, some of whose peaks were covered with eternal
snows. Since they had already made an unprofitable business of their
expedition, and failed in its principal aim, that of exploring Salt
Lake, they resolved upon crossing the mountains into California, and
seeking new fields of adventure on the western side of the Nevada
mountains.
Accordingly, although it was already late in the autumn, the party
pushed on toward the west, until they came to Pyramid Lake, another of
those swampy lakes which are frequently met with near the eastern base
of these Sierras. Into this flowed a stream similar to the Humboldt,
which came from the south, and, they believed, had its rise in the
mountains. As it was important to find a good pass, they took their
course along this stream, which they named Trucker's River, and
continued along it to its head-waters in the Sierras.
And now began the arduous labor of crossing an unknown range of lofty
mountains. Mountaineers as they were, they found it a difficult
undertaking, and one attended with considerable peril. For a period of
more than three weeks they were struggling with these dangers; hunting
paths for their mules and horses, traveling around canyons thousands of
feet deep; sometimes sinking in new fallen snow; always hungry, and
often in peril from starvation. Sometimes they scrambled up almost
smooth declivities of granite, that offered no foothold save the
occasional seams in the rock; at others they traveled through pine
forests made nearly impassable by snow; and at other times on a ridge
which wind and sun made bare for them. All around rose rocky peaks and
pinnacles fretted by ages of denudation to very spears and needles of a
burnt looking, red colored rock. Below, were spread out immense fields,
or rather oceans, of granite that seemed once to have been a molten sea,
whose waves were suddenly congealed. From the fissures between these
billows grew stunted pines, which had found a scanty soil far down in
the crevices of the rock for their hardy roots. Following the course of
any stream flowing in the right direction for their purpose, they came
not infrequently to some small fertile valley, set in amidst the rocks
like a cup, and often containing in its depth a bright little lake.
These are the oases in the mountain deserts. But the lateness of the
season made it necessary to avoid the high valleys on account of the
snow, which in winter accumulates to a depth of twenty feet.
Great was the exultation of the mountaineers when they emerged from the
toils and dangers, safe into the bright and sunny plains of California;
having explored almost the identical route since fixed upon for the
Union Pacific Railroad.
They proceeded down the Sacramento valley, toward the coast, after
recruiting their horses on the ripe wild oats, and the freshly springing
grass which the December rains had started into life, and themselves on
the plentiful game of the foot-hills. Something of the stimulus of the
Californian climate seemed to be imparted to the ever buoyant blood of
these hardy and danger-despising men. They were mad with delight on
finding themselves, after crossing the stern Sierras, in a land of
sunshine and plenty; a beautiful land of verdant hills and tawny plains;
of streams winding between rows of alder and willow, and valleys dotted
with picturesque groves of the evergreen oak. Instead of the wild blasts
which they were used to encounter in December, they experienced here
only those dainty and wooing airs which poets have ascribed to spring,
but which seldom come even with the last May days in an eastern climate.
In the San Jose valley they encountered a party of one hundred soldiers,
which the Spanish government at Monterey had sent out to take a party of
Indians accused of stealing cattle. The soldiers were native
Californians, descendants of the mixed blood of Spain and Mexico, a
wild, jaunty looking set of fellows, who at first were inclined to take
Walker's party for a band of cattle thieves, and to march them off to
Monterey. But the Rocky Mountain trapper was not likely to be taken
prisoner by any such brigade as the dashing _cabelleros_ of Monterey.
After astonishing them with a series of whoops and yells, and trying to
astonish them with feats of horsemanship, they began to discover that
when it came to the latter accomplishment, even mountain-men could learn
something from a native Californian. In this latter frame of mind they
consented to be conducted to Monterey as prisoners or not, just as the
Spanish government should hereafter be pleased to decree; and they had
confidence in themselves that they should be able to bend that high and
mighty authority to their own purposes thereafter.
Nor were they mistaken in their calculations. Their fearless, free and
easy style, united to their complete furnishing of arms, their numbers,
and their superior ability to stand up under the demoralizing effect of
the favorite _aguadiente_, soon so far influenced the soldiery at least,
that the trappers were allowed perfect freedom under the very eyes of
the jealous Spanish government, and were treated with all hospitality.
The month which the trappers spent at Monterey was their "red letter
day" for a long time after. The habits of the Californians accorded with
their own, with just difference enough to furnish them with novelties
and excitements such as gave a zest to their intercourse. The
Californian, and the mountain-men, were alike centaurs. Horses were
their necessity, and their delight; and the plains swarmed with them, as
also with wild cattle, descendants of those imported by the Jesuit
Fathers in the early days of the Missions. These horses and cattle were
placed at the will and pleasure of the trappers. They feasted on one,
and bestrode the other as it suited them. They attended bull-fights, ran
races, threw the lasso, and played monte, with a relish that delighted
the inhabitants of Monterey.
The partial civilization of the Californians accorded with every feeling
to which the mountain-men could be brought to confess. To them the
refinements of cities would have been oppressive. The adobe houses of
Monterey were not so restraining in their elegance as to trouble the
sensations of men used to the heavens for a roof in summer, and a skin
lodge for shelter in winter. Some fruits and vegetables, articles not
tasted for years, they obtained at the missions, where the priests
received them courteously and hospitably, as they had done Jedediah
Smith and his company, five years before, when on their long and
disastrous journey they found themselves almost destitute of the
necessaries of life, upon their arrival in California. There was
something too, in the dress of the people, both men and women, which
agreed with, while differing from, the dress of the mountaineers and
their now absent Indian dulcineas.
[Illustration: _BRANDING CATTLE._]
The men wore garments of many colors, consisting of blue velveteen
breeches and jacket, the jacket having a scarlet collar and cuffs, and
the breeches being open at the knee to display the stocking of white.
Beneath these were displayed high buskins made of deer skin, fringed
down the outside of the ankle, and laced with a cord and tassels. On the
head was worn a broad brimmed _sombrero_; and over the shoulders the
jaunty Mexican _sarape_. When they rode, the Californians wore enormous
spurs, fastened on by jingling chains. Their saddles were so shaped that
it was difficult to dislodge the rider, being high before and behind;
and the indispensable lasso hung coiled from the pommel. Their stirrups
were of wood, broad on the bottom, with a guard of leather that
protected the fancy buskin of the horseman from injury. Thus accoutred,
and mounted on a wild horse, the Californian was a suitable comrade, in
appearance, at least, for the buckskin clad trapper, with his high
beaver-skin cap, his gay scarf, and moccasins, and profusion of arms.
The dress of the women was a gown of gaudy calico or silk, and a bright
colored shawl, which served for mantilla and bonnet together. They were
well formed, with languishing eyes and soft voices; and doubtless
appeared charming in the eyes of our band of trappers, with whom they
associated freely at fandangoes, bull-fights, or bear-baitings. In such
company, what wonder that Bonneville's men lingered for a whole month!
What wonder that the California expedition was a favorite theme by
camp-fires, for a long time subsequent?
1834. In February the trappers bethought themselves of returning to the
mountains. The route fixed upon was one which should take them through
Southern California, and New Mexico, along the course of all the
principal rivers. Crossing the coast mountains, into the valley of the
San Joaquin, they followed its windings until they came to its rise in
the Lulare Lake. Thence turning in a southeasterly course, they came to
the Colorado, at the Mohave villages, where they traded with the
natives, whom they found friendly. Keeping on down the Colorado, to the
mouth of the Gila, they turned back from that river, and ascended the
Colorado once more, to Williams' Fork, and up the latter stream to some
distance, when they fell in with a company of sixty men under Frapp and
Jervais, two of the partners in the Rocky Mountain Company. The meeting
was joyful on all sides; but particularly so between Meek and some of
his old comrades, with whom he had fought Indians and grizzly bears, or
set beaver traps on some lonely stream in the Blackfoot country. A
lively exchange of questions and answers took place, while gaiety and
good feeling reigned.
Frapp had been out quite as long as the Monterey party. It was seldom
that the brigade which traversed the southern country, on the Colorado,
and its large tributaries, returned to winter quarters; for in the
region where they trapped winter was unknown, and the journey to the
northern country a long and hazardous one. But the reunited trappers had
each their own experiences to relate.
The two companies united made a party nearly two hundred strong. Keeping
with Frapp, they crossed over from Williams' Fork to the Colorado
Chiquito river, at the Moquis village, where some of the men disgraced
themselves far more than did Jo Walker's party at the crossing of Mary's
River. For the Moquis were a half-civilized nation, who had houses and
gardens, and conducted themselves kindly, or at the worst peaceably,
toward properly behaved strangers. These trappers, instead of
approaching them with offers of purchase, lawlessly entered their
gardens, rifling them of whatever fruit or melons were ripe, and not
hesitating to destroy that which was not ripe. To this, as might be
expected, the Moquises objected; and were shot down for so doing. In
this truly infamous affair fifteen or twenty of them were killed.
"I didn't belong to that crowd," says Joe Meek, "I sat on the fence and
saw it, though. It was a shameful thing."
From the Moquis village, the joint companies crossed the country in a
northeasterly direction, crossing several branches of the Colorado at
their head-waters, which course finally brought them to the head-waters
of the Rio Grande. The journey from the mouth of the Gila, though long,
extended over a country comparatively safe. Either farther to the south
or east, the caravan would have been in danger of a raid from the most
dangerous tribes on the continent.