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ALASKA






WESTERN WILDS,
AND
THE MEN WHO REDEEM THEM.
AN
AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE,
EMBRACING
AN ACCOUNT OF SEVEN YEARS TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE IN THE FAR WEST;
WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA; PERILS OF THE PLAINS; LIFE IN THE CARON AND
DEATj ON THE DESERT; THRILLING SCENES AND ROMANTIC INCIDENTS IN THE LIVES OF WESTERN PIONEERS; ADVENTURES
AMONG THE RED AND WHITE SAVAGES OF THE WEST;
A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW
MASSACRE; THE CUSTER DEFEAT; LIFE AND
DEATH OF BRIGHAM YOUNG, ETC.
BY
J. HB BEADLE,
Author of Ife in Utah; Western Coerespondent Cincinnati Commerciat, etc.
ILLUSTRATED.
JONES BROTHERS & COMPANY:
CINCINNATI,  PHILADELPHIA,   CHICAGO.
J. C. CHILTON & CO.,
DETROIT.
1881.




cOPYRiGHT, 1877, BY JOHN T. JONES.
KLECTROTYPKD AT
FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY,
CINCINNATI.




I Ike 1r01101111j1,1 H
IN writing this work the author had two objects in view: to interest the
reader; and to tell the exact truth about the country west of the Mississippi.
As to the first, there is neither argument nor assertion; the reader can only
judge for himself after perusal. But, as to the second, the author firmly
believes he has accomplished it. The Far West is an immense region, and
no one man ever visited all sections of it. The most to be expected is that
each traveler shall seize upon the salient features of certain portions, and
describe them in popular style. I have labored earnestly to give facts in
regard to the lands still open to settlement; and I-have been especially careful to correct certain errors as to soil and climate which I find very common
in the East. We often hear it confidently asserted, and by those who ought
to know, that "the American Desert is a myth-there is no desert in the
West."  I am sorry this statement is not true; but if there are not at least
300,000 square miles of utterly barren land, then "mine eyes are made the
fools o' the other senses," for I have lived and traveled many a week where not
one acre in a hundred is fertile. I have aimed to avoid personalities, but I
can not altogether refrain from harsh expressions as to the misstatements
*  made in many land circulars; or the colored falsehoods of many maps, made
"to invite immigration."
Some critics will object that the work contains rather more about Utah
and the Mormons than the subject warrants; and it is, perhaps, but natural
that one should write at length on that which most interests him. But I
apprehend this Utah question is one on which Americans generally need
information; it is liable to call for prompt action by government at any time,
and the people should be prepared to sustain their Representatives in all
constitutional means to relieve the Nation of this disgrace. The author has
been accused of undue prejudice against Brigham Young and other Mormon
leaders; more space is therefore given to the legal evidence of their crimes
than is usual in a popular work. Eight years ago I hunted up, from a score of
sources, the facts of the Mountain Meadow Massacre; and, when published,
there was a loud outcry that I had overdrawn the picture-" made it a
newspaper sensation." I here present the testimony of witnesses in court,
(iii)




iv


PREFACE.


sworn and cross-examined, to show that my narrative of eight years ago was
by far too mild; that in every charge then made against the Mormon Church
I was within the truth. Nor do I admit that all the black details are yet
known.   Evidence is yet to be developed which will convince the most
skeptical that Brigham Young was the accomplice and shield of murderers
This is a hard saying, but rest assured it will be proved.
If I have assumed too much in making myself an advocate for the political
and civil rights of the Gentile minority in Utah, that minority can easily
signify the same to their friends in the East who care to inquire. The
Americans in Utah went there from the States, and did not change their
natures when they changed their residence; they love liberty, and desire a
share in the local government for the same reasons they did in the East.
They have fought a good fight; they have accomplished much, and will do
more. If my criticisms upon Gen. Thomas L. Kane and other apologists for
Brigham appear severe, the record is presented to show their errors. The
record condemns them-not I. Of course there has been a great deal of
twaddle and romance on the part of the opponents of Mormonism-there
always is in matters of popular discussion; but the nearer we keep to
admitted facts, the more clearly we see that, on the main question, they are
radically right, and Brigham's apologists radically wrong. Polygamy an'
incest are admitted and defended in Utah; and it is a fair assumption that
men who violate law in two such important particulars, will violate it in
others, if their interest seems to require it. But, as mere inference is not
enough in such matters, I have, as aforesaid, given more evidence than the
aim and style of the work would have made desirable.
Five million Americans expect to go West. There should be a new work
on that section, written by some careful observer, at least once a year; for
the changes there are many and rapid. Doubtless so plain a presentation of
the discouraging features, as is here given, will have a depressing effect upon
the ardent; but it is best to know the truth. There is not as much room
for us to grow in that direction as is popularly supposed, and Americans can
not find it out too soon. So much for the main object of this work-truth.
As to the interest in the narrative-kind reader, excuse me; I touch your
hand, and without further apology introduce you to MY BOOK.
J. H. B.
COLUMBUS, OHIO, October 1, 1877.




CHAPTER I.
THE HAWKEYES.
I make a start.-Fair Iowa.-Yankee, Hoosier, Buckeye, and Scandinavian.-The
Aryan wave.-Hoosier grammar.-Sorrows of the non-resident land-owner.-" The
walled lakes."-Greatness of the Border States.-"Hoss high, bull strong, and pig
tight."-The 'hoppers.-" Omahawgs" and "Omahens." —" Milkville" and " Bilkville."Rural Nebraska.-Agricultural wealth.-Pawnees, Otoes, Omahaws.-The Bedouin instinct.-" Go West."...........   17-24
CHAPTER     II.                                f
A WESTERN CHARACTER.
Unsung heroes.-Scenes in Southern Kansas.-" Shuck up."-" Fevernager."-My
host's story.-He leaves Tennessee for New Orleans. —"Chawin' rags for a papermill."-Up into the Cherokee country.-Another run to New Orleans.-Walk home
through the "Injun" country.-Murder of McIntosh and others.-War between the
Rossites and Ridgeites.-Exposure and fever.-Delirium.-Rescued by the "little
Cherokee girl."-Home again.-Joe and Myra.-More trouble with the Cherokees.Journey to Iowa.-In danger from the " Danites."-Mrs. Joe's " tantrums."-Captured
by the Hawkeyes.-Interview with Judge Lynch.-Horrible murder of Miller and
Liecy.-Hanging of the Hodges.-Terrible times on the Half-breed Tract.-The California excitement.-Start from Independence.-Troubles on the way.-Danger and death
on the great desert.-Among the gold hunters.-More murders.-Return to Tennessee.The great war.-Death of the boys.-Removal to Indian Territory.-"Won't there be
peace while I live? "-Rest at last.                                        25-44
CHAPTER     III.
THE JOURNEY TO UTAH.
Flush times in Omaha.-Some characters.-Will Wylie's escape.-"Seen the
Elephant."-"A neck-tie sociable."-" Coppered on the jack."-Apostate Mormons'
caravan.-Up the slope to Cheyenne.-" Dirty Jule's."-The Plains.-" Magic City."Passage of the Black    Hills.-Virginia ) Dale.-Laramie Plains.-Benton.-Alkali
Desert.-Evanescent "cities."-Bear River City.-Battle with the roughs.-More
Mormons.-" Catfish with legs."-Horrors of Bitter Creek.-Green River.-Bridger
Plains.-The author a mule-whacker.-Grandeur of Echo Cafion.-Weber Valley.Up to Parley's Park.-Down Parley's Canon.-First view of the Salt Lake.-" City of
the Saints."-I become a Gentile sinner.....                     45-56
(v)




vi


CONTEVTS.


CHAPTER IV.
GEFFROY'S TRIALS.
On Griffith Mountain, Colorado.-"Are we the authors of our own destiny?"Geffroy's narrative answers.-Beautiful Geneva.-Frenchy fancies vs. German phlegm.A young enthusiast.-Hunting the Brotherhood of Man.-At New Harniony, Indiana.Failure of Communism.-At Nauvoo.-At Communia.-On the plains.-Enlist with the
Texan patriots of '43.-Bright pictures.-Stern realities.-" The River of Souls."-The
tierras templadas.-In the Wild Cafon.-Posted on the Taos Trail.-Another frightful
march.-Down to the Cimarron.-Another trial of the desert.-Night attack on the
Mexican camp.-Victory, followed in turn by flight.-Loss of the horses.-Geffroy and
friend go after them.-Surrounded by Mexicans.-A dash for life.-Headlong leap into
the chasm.-Oblivion, or death?.....                    56-71
CHAPTER V.
DOLORES.
Return to conscio:sness.-Laid up in the cabin.-Love and convalescence.-The
captured Americans.- -Dolores' plan.-The parting.-Gomez and the Pueblos.-Halt at
Jemez.-Meeting the Navajoes.-A land of wonders.-Among the Moquis. —A simple,
civil, and unwarlike race.-A race without envy or covetousness.-Joyful meeting with
Dolores.-Los -Diabolos Gringos.-Flight for the north.-Lost on the desert.-The horrors
of thirst.-Another day of anguish.- Life in the rock.-" With our lips pressed to the
rock we drew new life."-Hope revived.-Pursuit by the Mexicans.-Wounding and
death of Dolores.-Agony of Geffroy.-Enlists as a soldier.-The war in Mexico.Revisits Switzerland.-1848: the year of Revolutions.-In the army of Baden.Capture and long imprisonment. -Liberty, when hope was dead.- Return to the
Far West.-" The Brotherhood of Man comes not by spasmodic struggles, but by steady
toil.".......                                    72-89
CHAPTER VI.
POLYGAMIA.
I meet Brigham & Co.-Topography of his kingdom.-I reside there a year.-And
become a hated Gentile.-Mormon notabilities: Brigham, Orson Pratt, Hooper, Geo. A.
Smith.-"The One-eyed Pirate of the Wasatch." —Polygamy, Bigamy, Brighamy, Monogamy, and other gamies.-Utah politics.-Noted Gentiles.-Liberal Mormons.-Credubous skeptics.-" No trade with non-Mormons."-Consequent troubles.-Persecution of
dissenters.-Journey to Sevier.-Beauties of Pine Gulch.-Return to " Zion." —" There's a
better day coming."-Religious lying.-Perjury "for Christ's sake."..  90-102
CHAPTER VII.
THE PACIFIC SLOPE.
Westward again.-Corinne. —Promontory.-Dead Fall, Murder Gulch, Last Chance,
and Painted Post. —" Do me a favor: shoot me through the head "-Fine morality of
the gamblers.-The Great Nevada Desert.-" Sinks."-Up the Truckee.-State Line.Down the Sierras.-Wonders of Cape Horn.-Sacramento.-" San Joeykwinn."-Or San
Wahkeen?-In Yolo County.-Davisville.-Chinese and silk culture.-Tules.-Fruits




CONTENTS.


vii


and wine.-Does it supersede whisky?-The California seasons.-" Frisco."-Chinese
Theater.-The tragedy of Rip Sah.-Buddhist ceremonies.-A gloomy sort of religion.-.
"Top-side Josh."-The devil-drive.-" Chinaman like Melica man."..  103-116
CHAPTER VIII.
TWO YEARS OF CHANGE.
Utah and trouble.-"Mormon hospitality."-The author mobbed and badly hurt,
but recovers rapidly.-Healing air of the mountains.-Rich mineral discoveries in
Utah.-The Gentiles take heart.-The Emma Mine.-I go to Washington as a lobbyist.And don't like it.-Further travels in Utah.-Polygamy again.-Rev. J. P. Newman
shows that there are but thirteen polygamists mentioned in the Bible.-And hundreds
of good monogamists.-Orson Pratt comes back at him.-High times in the Tabernacle.-Some of the nasty features of polygamy.-Such as incest and indecency.-A village composed of Taylors.-And one made up of Winns.-General view of the Territory.-And of the Far West.....                     117-128
CHAPTER IX.
THE MISSOURI VALLEY.
Kansas City: a modern Rome.-We look at it, but do not invest.-The " Land of
Zion."-Lawrence.-" The Wakarusa War."-The Massacre of 1863.-The Athens of.the
West.-Our journey southward: The Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Road.Ottawa.-Western Yankees.-" Brother K —'s blooded mare."-" Buffalo stamps."-A
progressive country.-Fertility of Allen and Neosho counties.-An incorrigible old
man.-Cherryvale.-The beautiful mounds.-The social Kansian.-" Sna-a-a-kes!"Northward to Leavenworth.-Qtindaro Chindowan.-" A second Babylon."-Wyandotte.Atchison.-Troy.-St. Joe.-Up the Missouri Valley.-Council Bluffs.-Omaha.On northward.-Sioux City.-Onawa.-Woodbury. —Staging to Yankton.-Dakotians:
French, Scandinavians, and Bohemians.-" Woman's Rights:" to do as much work as
she can.-The gentle savage.-Iapi Oahye —" Portable talk."-Northern Dakota.Western Dakota.-We leave suddenly for California.                    129-139
CHAPTER X.
THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.
All aboard for Yosemite!-From chilly "Frisco" to melting Stockton.-By rail to
Milton.-Hot drive among the foothills.-Copperopolis.-The broiling stage; air dead
calm; thermometer 100~.-In the cool grove at last.-The vegetable wonders of the
world.-A: tree thirty-two feet thick.-" Father and Mother."-" Husband and Wife,"
250 feet high.-" Uncle Tom's Cabin."-How came they here? —California names. —
Over Table Mountain. —" Truthful James."- Old mining towns.- Sonora.-Chinese
Camp.- Garrote.- The Tuolumne Grove.- Tamarack Flat.- Reminiscences of the
"strong-minded."-First view of Yosemite.-Prospect Peak.-The terrible descent.A fall of 2,667 feet.-El Capitan:, Tu-toch-ah-nu-la.-A reverie on Cosmos.-Mirror
Lake.-Reflected glories.-The cliab to Nevada Falls.-Down by Vernal Falls.-The
sublime and beautiful.-J. M. Hutchings, the pioneer.-" Spirit of the Evil Wind.""Great Chief of the Valley."-Down hill to San Francisco.-Climate of the Coast.A day at the Cliff House.-Poluphloisboio Thalasses.-Regretful good-bye to the Pacific
Coast...                                                            140-163




viii


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER XI.
UTAH ARGENTIFERA.
Gentiles after silver: Mormons after the Gentiles.-" Revelations" and prospecting. —
Up Little Cottonwood.-The silver lodes-Snow-slides. —12,000 feet above the sea.-Bald
Peak, and a view of 20,000 square miles.-Big Cottonwood Cainon.-The great fire.American Fork Cafion: the Yosemite of Utah.-Mormon farmers vs. Gentile mountaineers.-" The Republic of Tooele."-East Cafion and horn silver.-Chloride Cave.-Dry
Caflon.-Wild times in the West Mountains.-A Goshoot feast.-I start to Dugway.And get lost on the desert. —   lonesome night.-Danger and weariness.-Ninety miles
travel in twenty-seven hours.-Independence Day on Great Salt Lake.-"No gulls
in Utah before the' Mormons came."-Sailing on the Lake.-Mines in southern
Utah.-Beaver City.-Mineral wealth of the Territory.-Shall we annex Utah to.Nevada?.....                                    164-181
CHAPTER XII.
A CHAPTER Ot BETWEENS.
Joe Allkire talks.-Valley tan whisky calls up reminiscences.-" A bad streak o'
* luck."-" Sod-corn barefooted."-Millerites. —" Misses Chew splits the choir."-The grand
dog5fight.-Which broke up a town.-"That yaller and spotted dog."-Abraham and
the preacher clinch.-" No Morgan-killers need apply."-" The head abolishinists."-Si
Duvall's luck.-Union Flats becomes very flat.-Other reminiscences.-Men who had
tried many fields.-Story of the mountaineer.-Will and Bob McAfee.-Camp in
Arkansas Cafion.-The storm, and falling timber. —Dreadful alternative of the unwounded brother.-He "relieves" the other's torture.-And dies of grief and remorse.                                                                182-193
CHAPTER XIII.
OKLAHOMA.
A new route to the Pacific.-I enter the Indian Territory.-Vinita.-" White Cherokees."-Cabin Creek.-Mixed bloods.-" It comes back on 'em."-Christian Indians.Muscogee.- Also Muskokee.-The Creeks at home. —Ala-bah-ma: "Here we rest."Natchees and Hitchitees.-An Aboriginal Democracy —House of Kings and House of
Warriors.-Pahly hohkohlen.-Tallahassee Mission.-The Muskokee in love.-" Beautiful
River."-Brad Collins and his gang.-Oklahoma vs. Okmulkee.-Red hot on temperance.-In the Choctaw country.-Tandy Walker.-Among the Cherokees.-The Big
Rattling Gourd and other politicians.-Cherokee history. —Civilized Indians of the
Territory.-What shall we do with them?.. f..            194-211
CHAPTER XIV.
JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.
Northward again.-Out on the Kansas Pacific.-A beautiful country.-Ellsworth.Carnival of crime in 1867.-"Wild Bill."-J. H. Runkle.-"Rake Jake."-"Dad
Smith."-" Shall we have a man for breakfast? "-Heroic, but murderous.-Bisons and
business.-Arrival at Denver.-Rest and enjoyment.-Southward by the narrow-guage
railway.-The Divide.-Timbered region.-Colorado City-Take stage-coach.-Pueblo.Night in the stage.-Cocharas.-The sefioritas.-Another day. of staging.-Trinidad.The Raton Mountains.-Down upon the New Mexican side.-Wild scenes.-Maxwell's
Ranche.-Passage of the Rocky Ridge.-A snowstorm and a grizzly.-Down to Santa




CONTENTS.


ix


Fe.-Disappointed with the city.-A queer old town.-High-sounding names.-Indian
troubles.-Starting for Fort Wingate.-La Bajada. —Quign Sabel-Pueblos Indians.Valley of the Rio Grande.-Albuquerque -The gente fina.-The "Greasers."-Will
they ever amount to any thing?.212-229
CHAPTER XV.
TOLTECCAN.
The oldest inhabitant.-Alvar Nunez, etc., traverses New Mexico.-What he saw
and how hie lied about it.-" The Seven Cities of Cibola."-Conque'st of New Mexico.R~volt of the Pueblos.-Second Conquest.-High-toned grandees.-Caste. —Sad (?) occurrence.- Should the Territory be made a State?-Citizen Indians.-Queer old customs.-Parental authority.-Enterprise.-The universal burro.-We cross the Rio
Grande.-And enter on the desert.-The awful, the unutterable desert.-Sufferings from
thirst.-Reach " Hog River."-Dead Man's Cafion.-Another desert.-Oasis of El Rito.Degenerate Spaniards.-Pueblo de Laguna.-An Aztec relic.-El Cubero.-" Women's
Rights."-Mala Pais.-Agua Azul.-The extinct volcano.-Drive to Fort Wingate.My companion comes, to grief.-Ojo del oso.-Zuni.-Stinking Springs.-The Puerco of
the West.-Down to Fort Defiance.                                      230-248
CHAPTER XVI.
WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.
The gathering.-Cafion Benito.-Handsome Indian girls.-Navajo patience.-A
mixed tongue.-" Slim-man-with-a,-white-eye."-El-soo-see En-now-lo-kyh.-" Big Quill."
-Murder of Agent Miller.-Sorrow of the Navajoes.-Their kindness and courtesy.-Off
for a trip.-My Navajo guide.-" To~th ktohh no mas."-Descent into Cailon de Chelley.Wonders on wonders.-The " cliff cities."-Moonlight in the caflon.-Out again on the
desert.-An awful passage.-The hot alkali plains.-Thirst and suffering.-" IUah-koll,
Jllelicano! "-Approach to the Moqui towns.-Amazement of the inhabitants.-The city
set on a rock.-The strangest people in the world.-Chino and Misiamtewah.~-The Moquis welcome me gladly..249-267
CHAPTER XVII.
AMONG THE AZTECS.
Topography of Arizona.-A region of hot sands and barren mountains, of fierce
sa~ages and gentle Indians, of rich mines and wild, forbidding wastes.-The Mesa Calabasa.-Zunis, Teguas, Moquis, Oraybes, Papagoes, Pimios, and Coco-Maricopas.Rapid decay of the wild tribes.-Noble Navajoes.-Tlhcir native shrewdness, industry
and bravery.-Who are they?-Aztecs?-Barboncito.-Ganadlo Muclio.-Their handiwork.-Their temperance and endurance.-Life at Moqui.-~-"-Ho, Melicano, messay vol "Jesus Papa.-Moqui theology.-The "white Indians" of Arizona.-Ruins.-Aztec or
Toltec?-Comparison with mound-builders' remains.-And South American Ruins.
-Only a theory.-Which no one is bound to accept.                      268-286
CHAPTER XVIII.
FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.
Two hundred miles of desert.-Aboriginal mail service.-A new guide.-His nelsoass.-Good-bye, Chino!-Journey to the new Navajo camp.-" Damn Espafiol, shteal
mooch."-On the sandstone me-sa.-A pleasant party of four.-" Todos muerlos, pero, mas




X


CONTENTS.,4pachesl"-Another sandstone waste.-First view of the river, 5,000 feet below us.Getting down the cliff. —Water and salts.-At the river at last.-No boats.-Perilous
passage.-The white woman: "My God, stranger, did you risk your life to swim that
river? "-The Mormon convort's story.-Three days at the ferry.-Parting from my Navajo friends....287-300
CHAPTER XIX.
A STARTLING INTERVIEW.
I meet with a surprise.-" Major Doyle " proves to be John ID. Lee.-And tells me
the story of his crime.-He describes the events leading to the Mountain Meadow
Massacre.-Character of the murdered emigrants.-They are charged with being erfemies of the Mormon people.-The latter incensed.-And determined on revenge.-Did
they poison the spring?-Or murder friendly Indians?-Outrage on Mrs. Evans.-The
Mormon Council.-Death of the emigrants determined upon.-The closing tragedy.Lee's excuses and subterfuges.-His further history.-A story horrible enough for the
most inveterate sensationalist.-I bid the Lees good-bye.-And with no regrets.-Grand
caflon of the Colorado.-Ride to Jacob's Pool.-Thence to Spring-in-ptock.-Lonely
oamping out.-My solitary journey to Kanab.-The Pi-Ede band of savages.-" Toh,
agua, water!I "-Rest at Kanab.-Jacob Hamlin.-Tbe Powell party.-On the desert
again.-Pipe Springs.-Our bishop landlord.-Another ride over rock and sand.Gould's Ranche.-Virgin City.-Toquerville.-" Mormon Dixie."-At Isaac Haight's.Kanarra.-Another misfortune.-Ride to Parowan.-Little Salt Lake.-Arrive at Beaver.
-Staging thence to Salt Lake City.....301-316
CHAPTER XX.
THE FAIR APOSTATE.
English homes.-Radical and Conservative; Chartist and Monarclhist.-Coming of
the Mormon missionary.-Simple lives changed.-Voyage to America.-The hand-cart
emigration.-Frightful sufferings on the plains.-Death on all sides.-Starved, frozen,
torn by the wolves.-The Old Radical finds the Brotherhood of Man.-A young hero.Willie Manson concludes to go West.-Journeys thro' Illinois and Iowa.-Meets a queer
party. -The year 1857.- His sufferings.-At Camp Floyd.-Goes to the city.-Sickness
and fever.-A. familiar face by his pillow....                  317-331
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.
Hot times in "1Zion."-" The Reformation."-Arrival of the hand-cart emigrants.An epidemic madness.-Horrible reign of lust and fanaticism.-United States officials
driven out.-Mormon war begun.-Skill and daring of Mormon guerrillas.-But the
Gentile army enters the Valley.-30,000 Mormons move south.-But rcturn and submit
peaceably.-Willie Manson's new friends.-More apostates.-John Banks and Thomas
James.-Little Marian becomes Miss Marian.-And Manson does not understand the
change.-In his perplexity he hears doctrine.-And reproof.-But hardens his heart.A new prophet.-Joseph Morris.-Morrisite Camp on the Weber.-Attacked ana broken
up by the Brighamites.-Murder of the women.-Barbarous killing of Morris and
Banks.-Flight of Thomas James.-Exhausted, he lies Aown to die.,,-Beatty and Manson off for Montana.-Relieve James.-War with the Bannocks.-Desperate encounters.
-Four years amid the gold fields.-Manson becomes a man/-The friends hear that all
is peace in Utah.-And together return to " Zion.".                 332-347




CONTENTS.


xi


CHAPTER XXII.
THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.
*Bright days in Cache Valley.-A brother and a sister restored to fellowship.Thomas James is again happy with Christina.-But he is a bishop's rival, and that
means danger.-" Blood atonement."-A nameless horror.-The man becomes a creature.
-Manson perplexed.-" Keep your eye peeled; this is a queer country."-Red-hot discussion of polygamy.-News from James; which is no news.-Anti-Gentile Philippics.Manson meets Marian.-A good outcome at last.-Astonishing conduct of Elder Briarly.-Mystery added to mystery.-Another Gentile panic.-Murder of Brassfleld.-Ontrages on Gentile settlers.-Murder of Dr. IRobinson.-Flight of the Gentile pre-emptors.Sad fate of Thomas James.-Bishop Warren has his reward.-But heaven is kinder to
Christina than her own people.-She finds release in death.-Briarly flies from the
Territory.-Marian and Manson.-Their Iowa home.-But Utah is the home of the
soul.-And President Grant has given us hope.-Hank Beatty's crime.-Death of his
wife.-The Mansons return to Utah.-As their troubles ended with a marriage, their
future state is left to faith.                                       348-370
CHAPTER XXIII.
SWINGING 'ROUND THE CIRCLE.
Off for Soda Springs.-A land of wonders.-A chemical laboratory ten miles
square.-Soda by the ton: to be had for the taking.-The ~'Morrisites" again.-A little run eastward.-Denver. —Lawrence.-St. Louis.-A day in Nauvoo: "Destined capital of a religious empire."-To the new North-west.-Yankton.-Assassination of
Secretary McCook.-Steamboating on the Missouri.-Sioux City again.-Enterprising,
but sensational. —Off for Minnesota.-We enter the Garden State... 371-378
CHAPTER XXIV.
MINNESOTA.
Reminiscences of 1859.-The Bois Brules.-Full-blood Chippeways.-Minnesota
pineries.-The Red Napoleon of the North-west,-"1 Hard times " in 1859.-I live on
corn-bread, hoe corn, and cultivate muscle.-Better times.-Siotux war of 1862.-Blueearth County.-Mankato.-Journey to St. Paul.-Topography.-St. Anthony's Falls.Minnehaha.-Journey to Sauk Rapids.-Staging thence northward.-Belle Prairie.Catholic outposts.-Crow Wing.-Black Pine Forest.-Brainard.-Breaking up the Sabbath.-A. Chippeway dance.-Out on the North Pacific R. R.-The barren region.Down to Red River.-Moorehiead. —Navigation to British America.-Fargo.-Westward
by construction train.-Dakota's Salt Lake.-Jimtown.-Eastward again.-The lake
region.-Scenery on the St. Louis River-.-Among the Scandinavians.-" Postoff."-Jay
Cooke's Banana Zone.                                                 379-389
CHAPTER XXV.
THE WAY TO OREGON.
"Let Ps try the web-feet."-Through Iowa.-Westward from Omaha.-Changes of
four years.-My fourteenth trip over the Union Pacific.-More trouble in Utah.-Across
the Sierras again.* —Up the Sacramento.-Gen. John Bidwell's ranche.-Grapes, figs,
apples,, and lemons in November.-Reading.-Walk-in Miller's squaw.-His life in
jail.-Great forests of the upper Sacramento.-Six Cailloux.-" Sleeping Dictionary. -
Yreka.-Over the mountains.-Klasmath River.-Cow Creek.-South Umpqua.-Rose



xii


CONTENTS.


burgh.-Oregon and California Railroad.-Down the Willamette.-" Beaver Lands."-In
Portland.-" Such a log! "-"John Chinaman."-First-class funerals needed.-" Webfeet" maidens.-Shall we go home by sea?-Down the Columbia by steamer.-" High
sea running."-" Oh, my head, my stomach! O-o-o! "-The boat goes on end.-The
land-lubbers fall on all sides.-Better weather.-"On an even keel."-Beauties of the
Pacific.-Cape Mendocino.-The Golden Gate.-Once more on terra firma.  390-405
CHAPTER XXVI.
LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.
" G. T. T."-Bad reputation.-" You may go to hell, and I'll go to Texas."-The
author finds things improved.-Through the Indian Territory.-Red River.-Denison.-" Nohth Fohk."-Healthy region.-" The spiral maginnis" or "De meninjeesus."-At Sherman.-Down Main Trinity.-Travels in Collin County.-The Cotton
Belt.-In Ellis County.-Navarro and Corsicana.-Insects and other sects.-" A thousand and forty-four legs."-Through Central Texas to Houston.-Buffalo Bayou.-Delightful ride to Galveston.-Celebration of San Jacinto.-" Brave Texan: bravest man
in the South, sah! "-Delights of the Galveston beach.-Beauties of the island.-Up
country.- The land of border romance.-Bob Rock and his brown mestiza. —Hon.
Shack " Roberts.-Some political notes.-A tolerant and liberal State.  406-418
CHAPTER XXVII.
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF TEXAS.
La Salle.-First Settlement on the coast.-Origin of the border question.-Murder
of La Salle.-The murderers murdered.-The missions.-Indios reducidos.-"Reduced"
by prayer and fasting.-The " men of reason."-War between the French and Spanish.Massacre of San Saba.-Decline of the Missions.-Louisiana ceded to Spain.-Better
times in Texas.-Louisiana ceded back to France.-The border question again.-The
United States takes a hand.-Fearful murders and robberies.-Magee's expedition.-Desperate battle.-Magee kills himself.-Surrender of his army.-They are barbarously
massacred by the Spaniards.-Revolution in Mexico.-More trouble in Texas.-Moses
and Stephen Austin.-Oppression of the Texans.-Revolution.-Heroic defense of the
Alamo.-Fannin's command butchered.-Glorious victory of San Jacinto.-Independence
and subsequent events.-Descriptive sketch of the State.....   419-431
CHAPTER XXVIII.
K1ANSAS REVISITED.
Through the new counties.-"Hard times."-The Grangers' War.-Woman suf,
frage.-Allen County.-Neosho.-Labette.-The Bender murderers.-Their real fate.Coffeyville.-Ten square miles of cattle!-" Not a good year for stock, eith6r."-The
cattle trails.-Montgomery County.- Kansas politics.-The Osage diminished Reserve.-Independence City.-Elk River.-Wilson County. —Neodesha.-Kansas cotton.Into the mound region.-Westward, ho! —Among the flint hills.-South-western Kansas.
-General view of the State....                   432-446
CHAPTER XXIX.
COLORADO.
Westward again.-1874.-Disappearance of the buffalo.-Reach Denver.-A long
rest.-Narrow-guage for Georgetown.-The sublime and beautiful in Clear Creek




CONTENTS.


Xiii


Caiion.-Floyd Hill.-Stage to Idaho Springs.- To Georgetown.-2,000 miners.-But
where are the women?- High climbs.-Cool retreats.- Independence Day on the
summit of the Rocky Mountains.-Snow banks and iced brooks.-Beatities of the
uipper parks.-Drive to Gray's Peak.-The September storm.-Climb through snow
and ice.-14,400 feet above the sea.-And a fearful snow-storm in summer.-Down
to Denver.-Up to Caribou.-Wild beauty of Boulder Caflon and Falls.-The rich
silver lodes.-On the plains again.-Ride to Greeley and Evans.       447-469
CHAPTER XXX.
THE CENTENNIAL STATE.
Coronado.-Mythologic age of Colorado.-Pike sees his Peak.-The hunters and
trappers.- Bloody encounters.- Love, treachery, and retribution.- Gold!-The great
rush.-" Pike's Peak."-Society takes shapc.-Miners', laws.-People's courts.-Attempts
at a Territory.-Successful at last: the 38th State.-Our life in Geoi-getown.-Griffith
Mountain.-" The Holy Cross."-Rich silver miines.- The Dives-Pelican Lode.Curiosities of mining.-" Sam Wann," or Juan.-Silver by millions.-Southern Colorado.-The White Desert.-Possibilities of the new State...   470-489
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE MORMON MURDERERS.
Another year in U~tah.-Capture of John D. Lee.-His awful crime.-Morbaon
madness in 1857.-Assassination of Parley P. Pratt.-The doomed emigrants pass
Salt Lake City.-Are harassed as they go south.-Attacked and besieged.-Surrender to
Lee and others.-A plot hatched in hell.-The demon Higby gives the signal.-Fearful
scenes of blood.-Onle hundred and thirty-one Americans fqll victims to Mormon
malice!I-And the Govef'nor of Utah "never heard of it! "-Brigham certifies to a
falsehood.-And swears to another.-Strange chain of events leading to discovery.-Lee
brought to trial.-Shameful farce of selecting jurymen.-A black case made out.Brigham's remarkable deposition..4907511
CHAPTER XXXIL.
GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?
Astonishing conduct of Mormon jurymen.-They refuse to convict.-But the Mormon Church can not afford to sustain Lee any longer.-They decide to give him up.Another trial in 1876. —And a Mormon jury convict Lee.-Sentence pronounced by Judge
Boreman.-Appeal. ---Date of execution postponed to March, 1877.-Executed upon the
very spot of his crime.-Lee's final and complete confession.-His last words.-His
peaceful and heroic death.-Was Brigham Young guilty?-Brigham's apologists.Captain John Codman, Geo. Q. Cannon, Gen. Thomas L. Kane...   512-530
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.
Does polygamy pay?-Why it engenders poverty.-Utah the poorest o~f the Territories in funded wealth.-Polygamy engenders deceit.-Dissipates social energy.And naturally goes 'along with a theocracy.-Slavish submission of the Mormon laity.The " Revelation."- And the falsehood that followed it.-Fourteen printed and sworn
deniials.-Frightful perjury.-Primitive marriage.- Monogamous animals.- Monogamy
the rule with all the higher organizations.-Polygamy and Polyandry.-Substantial'




Xiv


ICONTENTS.


numerical equality of the sexes.-Other evils in Utah.-Duty of Congress.-Shall we
have a Mormon State?.531-M48
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE NOBLE RED MAN.
The tragedy of June 25th, 1876.-Sorrow of the nation.-Sketch of Custer's life.H-ancock's campaign of 1867.-Hancock outwitted by the hostiles.-Custer's first Indian
fight.-" Cirdling."-Massacre of Lieutenant Kidder and party.-Horrid scenes.-General
Sully's campaign of 1868.-Custer's Washita campaign.-Yellowstone Expedition of
1873.-Murder of Honzinger and Baliran.-Arrest of iEain-in-the-Face. —He escapes
and swears vengeance against Custer.-Black Hills expedition of 1874.-Gold in the Hills.
-Events of 1875.-Campaign of 1876 against Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.-Custer in
disgrace at headquarters.-The iAserable Belknap affair.-Three columns converge on
the hostile camp.-The bloody ending.-Close of the campaign.-Sitting Bull goes to
Canada, and Crazy Horse to the happy hunting grounds-perhaps...   549-575
CHAPTER XXXV.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN THE TERRITORIES.
"The coming woman.",-Has she come in Utah and Wyoming?-Woman suffrage.
-A crime in Utah; a fraud in Wyoming.-A trick of the priesthood.-Propositions by
Senator Pomeroy and Representative Julian.-Folly of such schemes.-Women vote.And always for the Church as against liberty.-No Mormon women ever voted for free
schools or free speech.-Utah law: no marriage act and no dower law.-Wyoming.Woman suffrage adoptcd as a joke.-IHow it works.-No difference observable.Statistics of saloons and " social evils."~-Where is the " great moral reform? "-No
-women in office.-Women juries.-Why they were discontinued.-Does the good or evil
predominate?.576-591
CHAPTER     XXXVL.
THE DEAD PROPHET.
Brigham dies.-Charity demands only the truth.-His history.-" Hard working
Brigham Young."-The Kirtland folly.-Brigham carries a level head.-Building up
Nauvoo.-Martha Brotherton " blabs."-And the Prophet and Apostle get into hot water.
-"1 Spiritual wifery " introduced.-" Persecution."-Death of Joe Smith.-Brigham. as
head of the Twelve Apostles.-Journey to Salt Lake Valley.-Trouble with the United
States.-Brigham as a marrying man.-His, wives: Mary Ann, Lucy, Clara, Emmeline,
Amelia, and others.-An extensive parent.-His estate.-How will it "cut up? "-Who
will succeed?-And will the Church soon dissolve?.592-606
CHAPTER XXXVII.
WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE?
Go West 1-Southern Minnesota.-Iowa.-Southern Dakota.-Nebraska.-Xansas.
-The Indian Territory.-Nol!-Texas.-Do n't believe all you hear!1-The Indian border.-California: Land monopoly.-Oregon.-Climate and soil.-." The Great American
Desert."-Probable population in 1900.-Where is the surplus population to go?-Good
land pretty well occupied.-What will be the result?-Western Wilds will continue wild
for a century to come.                                               607-624




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


MAP OF ABORIGINAL AMERICA.
The non-resident tax-payer
"Our liberties, sir"
"Civilized".........
"Thoroughly acclimated "
"I hunted the pipe-works ".
Mrs. Joe's " tantrums".
" Made music all day "
His last chance
"Laying on of hands "
" The good old time "
" Only a memory "
Pulpit Rock: Echo Cation
The Great Salt Lake
On the slope of Griffith Mountain
To the rendezvous
Canon de las Animas...
Getting down to the Cimarron
For life or death
"Some one came forward holding a cup"
"The Mexicans saw no way "
"Dolores fainted in my arms "
"The balls whistled around us".
Brigham Young
Orson Pratt....
George A. Smith....
Brigham's Residences
Humboldt Palisades
Seven thousand feet above the sea
Cape Horn
California Agricultural Report
Barbary Coast: San Francisco
" Bodaciously chawed up "
Mormon wives for summer and winter
Great expectations
Dakotas torturing a Pawnee..
The two guardsmen.
The Fallen Monarch..
Something of a stump
A monster
Yosemite Falls..
El Capitan...
Bridal Veil Fall
Sentinel Rock
North Dome and Royal Arches
Nevada Falls
Vernal Falls
Mirror Lake...
Mormon Militia
Chloride Cave, Lion Hill.
Goshoot Love-feast
Lost on the Desert
Deacon Chew
"They broke loose and lit out down the street"
"And they clinched"....
"Half the town took a shy at him"
The Seat of War
"Where warring tribes met in peace"
Fine field for the ethnologist.
" Slem-lem-an-dah-mouch-wah-ger".


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PAGE... FRONTISPIECE........ 19......21..   24......  26. *.  29..35.. 40.45.47.      ~.. 49... 51......54.......55......56......62.           65..... 67..71.....73. 74........81......  85..90......  91...... 92...  95..105..107...108........112..115..118..121.135.  138....... 141..142..143.  145..147. 149. 152..155.157.. 159..             160.  161..  165..  171..             173..             176..           183......184..         185.186..             187....... 189..           195.  201
(xV)




Xvi                IL LUS TR ATIONS.
PAGE
"Go West"                                         211
Wild Bill..2A3
"Scattering leaden death on all sides"...214
"Divide Hotel and Ranche"1...                     216
"Suggested wild beasts and banditti"..220
The ambush and running fight..225
Pueblo Maiden..280
Kit Carson..234
Pueblo Cacique...                                 35
"Woman's Rights"..242
Coming to the "count"..249
On the Mesa Calabasa..269
"1Converted on the spot"..271
Navajo Loom..Z13
Aztec Priest and Warrior..284
Down the Cliff..294
Climbing for water..29.5
Mouth of Pahreah Creek..301
Head of the Grand Caflon...304
"Thi~ee little Injuns"...12
A 'Oi-Ede Ceres...13
Wi. 'er camp of Gosboots..325
Scenb. on the Colorado Plateau..330
"D AsheL, across the burning plain"..335
Thomas James kills the Bannock..346
"Behold our Lamanite Brother"35
"Let me look toward old England before I die"..367
"Willie has struck chloride"...                  369
Shoshonees with annuity goods..372
Burning of the Mormon Temple...375
Killing of Secretary McCook..377
Pembina people and ox-carts...                    79
Winter in Minnesota pineries...                   380
Mianehaha in winter..385
Dalles of St. Louis River..389
Blue Cafion, Sierra Nevada..391
Cotiilion on the stump of the mammoth tree..394
View in the Modoc country..396
Rapids, Upper Columbia..402
Cape Mendocino...404
Comanche warrior..410
"1I spiled his aim..416
Un Indio Bravo..421
Texas and Coahuila In 1830..426
General Sam Houston...                            8
"Droughty Kansas"..433
"Good Osage-Heap good Injun"..440
Affluent of Clear Creek..449
Sout~h-west from Gray's Peak..461
Deadly combat of Vaughn and La BoutS...          474
Toiling up Griffith Mountain..480
Capture of John D. Lee..491
Mountain Meadow Massacre..498
Salt Lake City, 1857..513
Exeeution of John D. Lee..525
New Mining Town..535
Cape Horn and Railroad.64
The Noble Red Man..549
Scene of Sioux War of 1876..551
"1Busted"..552
Custer's first 'Indian fight.. ~.554
Rude Surgery of the Plains..559
"1Giantess," big Geyser of the Yellowstone..578
Night bivouac on Green River, Wyoming..584
The Mormon Tabernacle..600
Fort Massachusetts, New Mexico, 1855...        616
The Prospector's Peril62




a f   - 7 I
WESTERN WILDS,
AND
THE MEN WHO REDEEM THEM.
CHAPTER I.
THE HAWKEYES.
THE rolling prairies of Iowa were taking on their richest summer
hues when I crossed from Prairie du Chien to McGregor, the first
of June, 1868, and entered upon a three hundred mile walk across the
State. The " Land of the Sleepy," as the aboriginal name implies, was
just then the land of men particularly wide awake to their own interests. I was but one of a grand army ever pushing westward-active,
aggressive, and defiant of space and time. Iowa combined the advantages of both East and West, and men of all North-European races
were crowding to possess it.
There was the Yankee, moving on with that resistless energy which
distinguishes the emigrant from our " Dorian Hive."  More rarely appeared the " Buckeye " and " Hoosier;" their route was a little farther
south, for emigration pays some attention to isothermal lines, and as a
rule older States settle the new States directly west of them. There
was the blonde Swede, tall and sinewy, his blue eye lighting cheerfully
at sight of such landed wealth, in a clime a little milder than his own.
Dane and Norwegian were also hurrying into north-western Iowa and
southern Dakota.  All these Scandinavian races are rarely seen south
of latitude 40~, but fill whole townships in our new North-west.
Dutch, Irish, Swiss, and North Germans contributed each a small
quota. One might have fancied himself borne forward on the crest of
that great Aryan wave which rolled westward and northward from Babel's plains. ~ Four years after I found inany of these emigrants in Dakota; already at home upon well-improved farms, and surrounded with
most of the comforts of life.
2                                              (17)




18


WESTERN WILDS.


Iowa and Minnesota were doubtless settled by the best class of immigrants that ever left the East. Their laws are favorable, their institutions progressive. Born republicans, these new-comers fell, by natural law, into free and progressive commonwealths. At first view one
would say that our mother English was in danger of being lost, and
that a new language would, ere long, rise in these mixed communities.
But English is the language of progress, and that tongue in which laws
are written and courts conducted will in time become the vernacular of any new country. In no part of America is a purer English
spoken. The native of Indiana finds, when settled beside the Yankee,
that he must drop some of his " Hoosierisms;" while the accent and
idiom brought from "Down East" are insensibly modified, till the
children of both compromise on the written language. Two hundred
years ago when a man spoke in the British Parliament it was known
on the instant what shire he represented; travel and civilization have
since made the cultured Northumbrian and East Angle to be of one
speech.
No grammar of the "Hoosier" language has ever been published.
Before it becomes extinct, as have so many dialects, it may be well for
one who spoke it in his childhood to fix a few of its idioms. It abounds
in negatives. Unlike English and Latin, an abundance of negatives
is held to strengthen the sentence. "Don't know nothing" is common. "See here," says the native, looking for work, to the farmer,
"you don't know o' nobody what don't want to hire nobody to do
nothin' nowhere around here, don't you?"  "No," is the reply, "I
don't."  " I reckon " is a fair offset for the Yankee " I guess "-the one,
as commonly used, about as reasonable as the other. But it is on the
verb to do that the " Hoosier" tongue is most effective. Here is the
ordinary conjugation:
Present Tense.-Regular, as in English.
Imperfect Tense.-I done it, you done it, he done it. Plural-We 'uns
done it, you 'uns done it, they 'uns done it.
Perfect Tense.-I gone done it, you gone done it, he gone done it.
PPlural-We 'uns gone done it, you 'uns gone done it, they 'uns gone
done it.
Pluperfect.-I bin gone done it, you bin gone done it, etc.
First Future.-I gwine to do it, you gwine to do it, etc.
Second Future.-I gwine to gone done it, etc. Plural-We 'uns
gwine to gone done it, you 'uns gwine to gone done it, they 'uns gwine
to gone done it.
Philologically this language is the result of a union between the rude




THE HA WKEYES.


19


translations of " Pennsylvania Dutch," the negroisms of Kentucky and
Virginia, and certain phrases native to the Ohio Valley; and in my
boyhood I often heard it verbatim as here given.
The Iowa pioneers had developed a marked faculty for taking care of
themselves, and making the non-resident owner of real estate help develop the country. Three-fourths of the taxation was laid upon land,
chattels being almost exempt; and, in the valuation, no distinction was
made between slough and upland, vacant and improved. Villages,
where there was much non-resident property, were generally well improved; and the side-walks were always best before the nonresident's lots, direct taxation being in the same ratio.  If he did
not come out and enjoy the promenade he had paid for,
it was his own fault.  The school laws of Iowa are surprisingly liberal in this respect, allowing a school in
every township or district where there are six children.
The citizens have the right to organize a school district
as they will, regardless of their number. One worthy
in Wright County, finding himself, wife and seven children to be the only inhabitants of the township, forthwith called a school meeting, notices being posted according to law, elected himself director, fitted up one
room in his dwelling for a school, and employed his THE NON-RESIDENT
oldest daughter to teach the other six children.  Thus, TAX-PAYER.
he gave character to the settlement, and raised the money to improve his farm by simple compliance with the law. And do such a
people require Congressional protection from the bond-holders and
grasping monopolists of the East?
At the end of a week's leisurely travel, I was eighty miles from the
Mississippi, and the appearance of the country had greatly changed.
There were vast tracts of unsettled prairie; timber had grown scarcer;
cultivated farms were rare, and just as the space between them increased
the people grew warmer in their welcome. I was now away from the
main line of emigration; and families in out-of-the-way places are
nearly always hospitable. The chance traveler is as good as a newspaper,
and is apt to be put to press on arrival. I soon learned to dread the
wooded vales along the larger streams on account of the heat. To leave
the high prairie for the "bottom" was like going from balmy May to
sultry July. Regions where there is much wind are generally healthful; but when the wind falls one is liable to fall with it. There are no
hotter districts in the Union than Iowa and Minnesota during those
very brief periods in summer when a dead calm prevails. Though I


b




20


WESTERN WILDS.


had started an invalid, every day's walk made it easy to walk a little
farther the next; and at the end of the second week I easily madt
twenty miles a day. If a man would be cured by nature, he must trus,
her-be taken to her bosom, as it were. Many an invalid goes West
for health, and imagines the climate has cured him, when, in truth, he
has only forgotten his physic, and been charmed out of his cares, and
taken to open air and abundant exercise..,
Iowa Falls, where the Iowa River leaves the " summit divide " prairies
and plunges down a series of beautiful cascades to the level of the lower
valley, was the location of the prettiest city on my route, and then the
terminus of the Dubuque and Sioux City road. Thence I journeyed
up Coon River and out to Wall Lake. To visit this place had been a
dream of my boyhood. Twenty-five years ago it was represented as a
marvelous work of the "mound builders."  I found the "walls" there
not so wonderful as described, but well worthy a visit; not the work
of any prehistoric race, but due entirely to the expansive force of ice.
In the vicinity are at least a dozen lakes with the same formationsome even more curious than the one most noted. They are on the
"divide," between the waters which flow northward into the Minnesota and those which drain southward; and in all countries such a
region abounds in lakes. The Iowa winters freeze the lakes almost
solid, and the ice gathers up stones, pebbles and mud, and year after
year pushes them toward the shore; then when the lake is full and
fr&zec, it drives them with resistless energy into the "wall," till the
latter looks like the most compact of man-made masonry. In some
instances the water has cut a new outlet and drained the lake, and
within a few years nature has begun the formation of a new wall inside
the old one. Swans and wild geese abound in this region, which
warmly invites the tourist, the scientist and the sportsman.
Westward again, and nothing but prairie to be seen; an average of
two or three families to the township, and half a day's travel at a time
without sight of a house. The swiftly running streams, with hard bottoms and pebbly banks, disappear, and sluggish sloughs take their place.
Dawn a long slope for six or eight miles, the road brings one at last to
a slough, sometimes with current enough to be called a creek, along
which is found a scattering growth of timber, and sometimes a few enclosed farms. Thence one rises by slow degrees to another divide, and
again down a slope to the next creek and settlement, from ten to thirty
miles from the last. But the wave of immigration was rolling in; the
railroad had been located on this route, and now the line I traversed
presents a constant succession of cultivated fields and tasty homes; a




THE IHA WKEYES.


21


region rich with orchards, white and red with clover-tops, or yellow
with heavy-headed grain. Then there was but one railroad across the
State; now there are four from the Mississippi to the Missouri-all
stimulated by the completion of the Union Pacific.  Then Iowa had
one acre in seventeen under cultivation; now she has one in ten, and a
population of nearly two millions.  With less waste land than any
other State, except possibly Illinois, Iowa could sustain a population
of fifteen millions, not merely in comfort, but in affluence. What
American realizes the prospective greatness of that tier of States just
west of the Mississippi?  Minnesota has 30,000 square miles of wheatproducing soil; Iowa has more arable land than England; Missouri
has more iron, coal, timber and water-power than Prussia; Arkansas in
extent and richness fairly rivals the Kingdom of Italy; and Louisiana,
besides her sugar and cotton, runs two State governments, decides the presidential election, and has a heavy crop of statesmen to
spare.
The scarcity of timber through this section had stimulated the invention of substitutes. The chief novelty was wire fence, usually made
by fastening three wires on a row of posts with slip cleats. This was
only to turn cattle; but a fancy
article was made
with six strands,
which rendered it
in local parlance
M"horse-high, bull-                                 I h
strong and pigtight."  Most of   _.
the counties
thought it cheaper
to forbid pigs run-             "OUR LIBERTIES, SIR"
ning at large. In
Missouri and the timbered portions of the border States, I heard this
statute denounced in much the same terms as the prohibitory liquor
law-"an invasion of our liberties, sir!"  Further north popular
sentiment was expressed in the pithy saying: "A man's a hog that 'I1
let a hog run."  Iowa, by an overwhelming majority, had' equally
prohibited errant hogs and free whisky. Minnesota, when I resided,there in 1859, still held many of the traditions of Maine, whence
most of the pioneers had come, and had equally condemned the sale of
intoxicants. But western manners proved too strong for both States,




22


WESTERN WILDS.


for in the larger towns at least the traffic was, and is, open and
unrestricted.
Drawing near the Missouri I found the country rising into long
ridges and abrupt swells of land, the sloughs disappearing for the most
part, and clear streams again taking their place. The grasshoppers had
come in to desolate the few settlements, and for two days' travel I heard
little but complaints and forebodings. Their method that season was
peculiar. They traveled along a defined track, generally not more
than a mile wide; but over that area they covered the ground, while
the air seemed full of white specks, the creatures flying as high as one
could see. Before them were green prairies, fields rich in clover, corn
and wheat; behind them blackness desolation and mourning. But
while I studied them a strong wind sprang up from the east, and in a
few hours they disappeared and were seen no more; not, however, until
they had destroyed about half the crops in three counties. Whence
come they, and whither do they go? Science and unlearned conjecture
seaem equally at fault. It is certain that they can only breed on high
and dry ridges and plains, and a wet season is fatal to them. An old
and abandoned road is their favorite hatching ground. For the most
part they confine their ravages to the border, but occasionally they
sweep in destructive columns far down toward the Mississippi. A few
years later I was destined to have an unprofitable experience with them
in Kapsas, after the State had been free from them seven years, and the
least hopeful believed that their day had passed forever.
From this region I turned south-west, and the last of June crossed
the Missouri to the metropolis of Nebraska. Omaha was then the city
of promise. Whether that promise has been fulfilled is a matter of
doubt with many who were then sanguine. The rivalry with Council
Bluffs, on the Iowa side, was intense and amusing. On the west bank,
one heard contemptuous allusions to "the Bluffs," "East Omaha," and
"Milkville."  On the other side there were withering sarcasms about
"Bilkville," " Traintown," " Omahawgs," " Omahens," and " The
U. P. Station across the river." The editors on one side, according to
their statements, made their "libelous contemporaries" on the other
CCsquirms almost daily. To the stranger, who had no possessions in
either place, it was a free comedy. The " Omahawgs," with cheerful
disregard of grammar, spoke of their city as the "initial terminus" (in
English, "beginning-end") of the UTnion Pacific Railroad, and fuiture
entrept of the California, China and Australia trade. It did look
reasonable that they should build up a great city, and cheering prophecies were abundant. Somehow they have been slow of fulfillment. A




TIlE HAWKE YES.


23


careful census by the city authorities made the population 19,000. The
next year they modestly estimated it in round nifrnbers at 25,000; and
the next came a great epidemic (of United States officials) and swept
off half the number, for the United States census of 1870 credits Omaha
with less than 13,000 inhabitants. The city is cosmopolitan. First
Street is located in the river (at high water), and the first seven streets
are supposed to be on the sandbar. The city begins at Eighth
Street, and the location of the fashionables is from Eighteenth to
Twenty-fifth Streets, on Capitol Hill. Such are the pleasing self-delusions of the expanding mind in the glorious free and boundless West.
It was the notable hot season in Nebraska, and a week in the metropolis satisfied me. Thence I sought the country by way of the old California trail, and traveled a month in rural Nebraska-first in the valley
of the Papilion (which the people persist in calling Pappeo), and thence
to Fontanelie and up the Elkhorn through what is considered the garden spot of Northern Nebraska. It is a region rich in natural wealth,
and was even then so handsomely improved that travel through it was
a constant delight. There were miles of corn-fields, with heavy crops,
and tracts of wheat just ready for harvesting, farm products of Call kinds
in abundance, and plenty blessing the industrious farmer. Planted
timber of nearly all kinds grows rapidly, cottonwood and locust especially; nearly every settler has an artificial grove, and these are
abundant enough to greatly beautify the landscape. The soil is deep
and rich, the country gently rolling, high, dry and healthful. The
wheat through that region averaged twenty-five bushels per acre that
year. For the width of the State north a-nd south, and a hundred and
fifty miles back from the Missouri, almost every acre is adapted for the
production of grain. Thirty thousand square miles of land give abundant room for an agricultural population of a million. West of the
area I have thus bounded, the land rises more into the barren ridges;
only the valleys are very fertile, and most of the country is valuable
only for grazing. Society is well organized; churches and schools have
been handsomely provided for; vacant land in the fertile section is
still abundant and cheap, and if one is native to any latitude north
of 360, Nebraska offers him first-class inducements.
The Indian still lingered.  The Pawnees were the local aborigines,
but Omahas (properly Mahaws) and Otoes were common, all three being among the most unprepossessing of the race. Long observation
has convinced me that those tribes which fringe the white settlements, hanging between civilization and barbarism, always include
the meanest looking specimens. Of course, I except the civilized res



24


WESTERN WILDS.


idents of the Indian Territory. Cooper's Indians are extinct, but the
"noble red man," in a certain sense, does exist, and I have seen him.
But not near the settlements.  One must go far into the interior,
where they are the style and he the oddity, to see really interesting Indians. How inferior are the Pawnees to the Sioux, the Kaws to the
Utes, the Osages and Otoes to the Navajoes! A few tribes may pass
successfully across the awful gulf between savage life and civilized, but
there is a fearful waste of raw material in the process.
My travels in Nebraska drew near a
QCRfEATSPIlIT SALO014,  close, and I stood at evening of a beautiful summer day, upon a lofty hill that
-s -  Il   overlooked the fertile Platte Valley.
Southward the scene was bounded by the
heavy timber lining that stream; east-  ward I looked over a landscape rich in
[l  W^~_~  natural and artificial beauty to the for-i^^   ests on the Missouri; northward the
a mile by the tasteful groves which adorn
its bluffs, while westward the view was
free to the meeting of earth and sky.
That way lay adventure and novel scenes;
that way I was mightily drawn. The
CIVILIZED."      haze of evening softened the outlines of at
beautiful landscape; from the eastward came the rumble and smoke of
a Union Pacific train dashing out for Cheyenne, while westward up
the valley a vagrant party of Pawnees were fast pressing out of sight.
The scene was an emblem of progress. I breathed the spirit of borderland poetry. The Bedouin instinct stirred within me, and I burned to
hasten my departure to that newer West, which already made this region
seem old. But before I enter on the long detail of my Western wanderings, let me briefly sketch the labors and perils of a '49-er, who
passed that way nineteen years before me.




CHAPTER II.


A WESTERN CHARACTER.
UNCONSCIOUS greatness is a Western product. There many a man,
in pursuance of the humblest duties, becomes a hero without knowing
it. One such let me celebrate. A most modest hero, he had seen the
world without intending it; had lived a romance in the mere earning
of a livelihood, and grown great in simple-hearted obedience to family
affection.
In the autumn of 1873 I made a leisurely journey through the new
counties of southern Kansas. The Osage Ceded Lands, which only
five years before had been a game preserve for vagrant aborigines, were
now dotted with neat villages flanked by well cultivated farms. From
the summit of a lofty mound in Montgomery County one could look
over 500 square miles of rolling prairie and fertile valley, the home of
20,000 Americans. Westward the land rose more into barren ridges,
beyond which were the fertile slopes of Cowley County and the new
country on the Arkansas. Between was a region almost unsettled; the
rocky ridges were fit only for pasturage, and the narrow valleys were neglected till better places should be filled. There one might ride for
hours without sight of a dwelling, fortunate at night if a settler's cabin
furnished him shelter in a room common to all the family. At the
close of a September day I had ridden ten miles without sight of a
house, and eagerly scanned the horizon. A horseman from the opposite
direction hailed me with equal eagerness to learn the distance to Elk
Falls, his first chance for the night. On learning that it was ten miles,
he indulged in a prolonged whistle, and in turn informed me he knew
of no house on this road for fifteen miles. "But," he added, reflectively, "ther's old Darnells, only a mile off the road, down Grouse
Creek. They'll keep you if you're a mind to stop there. They've got
plenty, too, such as it is, and the old woman's a prime cook, and '11 set
it 'fore you warm and clean. The old man's the wust shuck up settler
on the creek, what with rheumatiz and ager and the swamps and one
thing an' another; but git him stirred up and he's a powerful talker.
Heap o' life in him yet."
So I went to Darnells.
25)




26


WESTERN WILDS.


The first show was not inviting. A rambling, double-log house of
the South-western pattern-practically two cabins under one roof, with
a broad covered passage between. But many a pleasant night have I
passed, and eaten many savory meal, in those same double-log cabins;
and in the long hot days of summer, south of latitude 40~, I know of
no better place to loll away the delightful after-dinner hour than in the
open passage aforesaid.
My host was indeed "shuck up," "{doubled up," too, I should say.
"Fevernager," Arkansas swamps, and prairie sloughs had done their
appointed work on him, and he was that perfect wreck, a "thoroughly
acclimated man." He was, in local phrase, "yaller behind the gills;
his face was of a pale orange tint, his cheeks a dirty saffron, while
along the neck his skin resembled a ripe pumpkin speckled with coffee
grounds. He received me with
digniified welh   come-in   these
-  wilds no question. ge athe                           is made as to
lodging the be-lated traveler —
and referred the
c  o                    matter of supper
to "1the old woman."
One glance at
her revealed the
Cherokee  i neage. The deep,
dark eye with
"THOROUGHLY ACCLIXATED."           slightly  melanb                                   choly cast, the
straight black hair, and nose just aquiline enough to give piquancy to
the countenance, indicated the quarter-blood; while her air and bearing gave a hint of Ross or Boudinot stock-the aristocracy of that most
aristocratic of all our aboriginal races. The supper was a surprise.
She had evidently learned cooking in better schools than south-western
cabins supply. Like him, she seemed preternaturally quiet, as if absorbed in thought; they lived in the past, and to them Kansas was not
the home of the soul. New countries should be settled only by the
young, for the tree of deepest root bears transplanting but poorly.




A WESTERN CHARACTER.,


27


The broad, red sun was just dipping into the prairie horizon, when a
gray haze overspread the landscape, creeping up from the sluggish
stream. The old man waved his hand toward it with the brief but
expressive phrase, "break-bone fever," and we retired to the cabin and
evening fire. As we filled and lighted the inevitable cob pipe, common in the South-west, I spoke of Andrew Jackson's love of the same,
and his Tennessee habits, whereat my host broke out with sudden animation:
"Ah, you're from Tennessee, a'nt you?"
"Not exactly," was my reply, "but I know and like the State."
"Well, I was raised there, right on the banks of the Tennessee, but
I was born just over the line in Alabama. Yes, sir, sixty-four years
ago, in Glen Cove, I tuck my first view of life. Nicest climate in this
world, sir, and bad as I've seen it tore up since, I don't want no better
country."
"But how came you to leave, if it was so good a country? "
"Well, a good many things happened; sort o' riled the current and
spiled me for a steady life, though I'm pretty well anchored now, for a
fact;" and glancing at his distorted limbs, he relapsed into speechlessness, puffing at his cob pipe, and waiting, Indian fashion, for the talk to
break out naturally. Hot youth was more impatient of time, and I
asked:
"If no offense, what caused you to leave that country for this?"
"Well, I did'nt leave there for here; that would be too big a
change. They was many haps and mishaps between. It happened
along o' family matters and the war.' You see they was five brothers
of us and one sister, me the oldest; and mammy sort o' give the rest
in my charge. Poor mammy, she never seed any of us old enough to
be sure of."
"But how about your father?"
"Well, daddy was a little onsettled; along o' trips down into the
Cherokee country and tradin with the Injins-in fact he let his little
finger ride his thumb too often, and his eyesight weakened on it."
This was a delicate allusion to his father's intemperance, given in
the figurative language of the South-west.
"Fact, he took me down among the Injins in Geawjay and North
Alabama one trip-fine country that, too; altogether too fine for the
Injins to keep if the whites wanted it-but daddy went off at last, and
that was the how of my first trip. He went off on a broad-horn. You
don't know what a broad-horn is. No? Well, it's a flat-boat of the
old rig; and the men come back without him. Them days they com



WESTERN WILDS.


monly walked back from Noo Orleens thro' the Injin country. All
they said was he had lost all his money, and swore he'd never come
back till he could come full-handed. Mammy was ailin' then, and
after that she never seemed to pick up any; and the day I was sixteen
she called me close to the bed and she said: 'Willy, you go find him,
and bring him back, for when he dies he'll never be easy 'cept beside
me,' and then she laid onr me the charge of all the other five-and,
stranger, I can't somehow talk about that time, but just a week after
they was only me and Myra and the four little boys left. I tell you it
was a sad time. I've only seen one worse and that was in the war.
" I hadn't time to cry much, for I had a family on my hands and
mighty little to go on except the place. We all worked and made a
crop, and then I fixed things up a little, and got a neighbor to take the
place-mighty nice people they was then in old Tennessee-and I
started to find dad."
"What! went to find your father at that age?"
"Yes," said the old man simply, "mammy had said so, and of
course it had to be done. Daddy had been gone a year, when I took
a broad-horn to Noo Orleens, and when I was paid off on the levee,
I was the worst lost man you ever did see. In the middle of the
thickest woods in the world wasn't a circumstance to it. Such crowds
and crowds of people, and ships and boa* and stores, and men all
rushing here and yander, enough to distract you. Why, they wan't
more'n one man in four understood a word I said. In all my life I'd
never heard of any language but white-man and Injin, and there was
'ortagee, Mexican, Gumbo, French and Coaster, talkin' every thing,
and all mixed up. My head was a swimmin -just off the boat, you
know-and sometimes I half reckoned I'd walked right out o' the
Ark and into the brick-yard at the Tower o' Babel; for I'd read o'
that anyhow, and might a' known how things would be in Noo Orleens if I'd a thought. But says I to myself, no time to cry now;
I'm here. So I went about asking every man that understood me if
he'd seed a man.named Hiram Darnell. Well, some of 'em cussed
me, and most paid no attention to me; but bimeby one chap says:
( Oh, yes, I know Mr. Darnell; he's up on Chapitooley Street a chawin'
rags for a paper mill.' And another said: 'He was at the pipeworks, and they was trainin' him to go through-a drain-pipe,' and all
such stuff.
"Well, I was that green I hunted the pipe-works, and there they
sent me to a leather store to buy 'strap-oil,' and told me a lot more
stuff. Then I walked all over the city, miles an' miles an' miles,




A WESTERN CHARACTER.


29 -

lookin' close at every body I seed, an' it seemed to me I seed every
body but dad. In less'n a month all my money was gone, an' I felt
awful streaked: But I lit on another feller who told me the right
track, and we did find out where dad had worked
a while; but he was gone, and finally the police
said he wan't in N oo Orleens now. So I went to:
work on the levee a while haulin' and pitchin',
but it was awful hot then. A feller's shadder at  i],.
noon was right 'tween his feet, and 'fore long I
struck an ole pard o' dads, and found he'd gone
away up Red River, in the new country. So I <      I /'
went deck-hand on a boat up Red River, and they I
was nothing like so many folks up there, an' people
more civil; an' I traced him all through Arkansaw toward the Injin country. But it took a   -e     'B
might of time. Sometimes I worked and sometimes I walked, and at last got where there was
no houses hardly, and many a time I was alone ", HUNTED THE PIPEall dcay in the woods, and more'n once nearly lost  WOwKS."
in the big swamps. At last I got into a more open country and some
new settlements about Fort Smith, and then I fell in with some Cherokees, and sure enough they knowed dad.
"You see, a lot o' Cherokees moved out there away back before
Jackson come in first time, and dad had his old liking for the tribe,
and had fell in with them, and away up in the timber I found him at
last. But, law, how he was changed! He come out of a cabin and
looked at me as if I was a stranger. What with hot weather and
whisky and the trouble and yaller fever, he wasn't just clear in his
mind, and what to do I didn't know. But I'd learnt something by
that time, so I watched around and got him fixed up a little, and with
a good family, an' I went to work again. The Cherokees was fixinI
up considerably, an' I made a pretty good job at rough carpentering;
and there I worked a whole year."
" You must have been rather home-sick by that time."
"Well, I was a little anxious about the boys. Myra was nearly
fifteen when I left; then come Joe, thirteen; him I played with, an'
had more to do with than any of the boys. Many's the hour we've
fished an' hunted along the Tennessee. Poor Joe! I've seen the
time since when I wished he was a boy agin, but," with a stidden burst of triumph, I stuck by him to the last, as Id promised
mammy."'




30


WESTERN WILDS.


Here the old man fell into such a protracted reverie, that I ven-.
tured to recall him to the Arkansas and his father.
"Oh, yes, I clean forgot. Well, in a year dad was'so much better
that we started home, takin' a job on another boat to Noo Orleens to
shorten up the walk a little."
The calm way in which he spoke of shortening the walk from Fort
Gibson to East Tennessee, was wonderfully suggestive. If it had
been around the world, he would have entered on it with the same resolution, as something that was not to be talked about, but done.
" When we got to Noo Orleens and got paid off, we fixed up with
some clean clothes, lookin' real human again, and started home. But it
seemed like every thing was agin us. The trail then led away from the
river, and sort o' north and east, nearly straight toward the bend o'
the Tennessee. We worried along with heat, for it was late, till we
struck the edge of the Injun country, where we found every thing all
tore up. I never got the hang of it exactly; but the States was a
pressin' the Injins to go, an' some wanted to an' some didn't; and the
Choctaws they was a fussin' with their agents, an' the Cherokees a
fightin' with one another, an' there.was murder an' robbery an' horsestealin' all over the country, an' their light-horse companies out arrestin'
every body that passed on the roads. How I got along I don't know.
Every time I laid down in an Injun cabin it seemed to me I'd have
my throat cut 'fore mornin'; but dad talked the lingo like a born
Injin, so they couldn't come no tricks in our hearin', an' every night
I dreamed I saw mammy, an' she looked kind o' glad, an' though she
said nothin', her looks meant plain enough: C Don't cry, Willy, you'll
get home all right.'
"But when we got to the Cherokee country it was worst of all.
They was two parties in the tribe, Rossites and Ridgites, and just then
the Rossites got up an' murdered a chief named McIntosh an' a lot of
other Ridgites, an' swore that every Injun that said 'go' should be
served the same way. They stopped us, an' wouldn't let us go through
at all. They pow-wowed around with us for two months; then come
along some that knowed Daddy, an' they said he should go or they'd
have blood. So it was settled that I was to stay an' him go on, an' if
it proved we was all right, I was to be let go in so long a time. When
the time come they turned me loose, an' I started north on the first
road I struck. But I was powerfully out o' conceit with the redskins,
an' the first two nights I slept out.
" It was then September, an' the next day, when I thought I was
near the Tennessee, all at once I took so cold I seemed like I'd chill to




A WESTERN CHARACTER.


31


death an' pretty soon so hot that I stopped at a spring an' drunk an'
drunk till I staggered 'round like I had a load of whis`ky on. An'
when night come on, I kept gettin' up an' layin' down first one place
an' then another, an' then huntin' water an' tryin' to get into a house
that was right afore me, an' yet I couldn't somehow locate it. All at
once I come on Joe, an' I cried like a child, an' begged him to take me
in an' give me a drink. It 'peared like Joe was scared of me, an' run,
an' I run an' called to him all night thro' the woods. Then it come
on to rain, an' I got down by a tree, an' it seemed like Joe was jist
t'other side of the tree, an' wouldn't come an' help me. So I got up
an' staggered on, an' all at once I was at myself, settin' at the foot of
another tree, an' somebody was callin' thro' the woods for milk cows.
And when the voice come near me I set down an' cried, for it made me
think o' Mammy and Myra-it was so soft an' sweet. Then a girl
come up, and I tried to speak, but shivered an' shook that bad I
couldn't say a word. But how pretty that little white Cherokee
looked! Stranger, you have no idee. No woman you ever see could
ekal her."
I was about to demur to this, when the fire blazed up brightly, and
I glanced across the hearth at the "old woman;" and-was it fancy? or
did the lines in the poor, worn old face seem to fade away, and a tremulous softness steal into the dark eyes? I suspended criticism, and
after a brief reverie my host continued:
"' Well, I sunk down agin, an' the next I recollect I was in a cabin,
an' an old conjurer was pow-wowing over me. She was the blackest,
grizzliest old Cherokee I ever seed; an' us she muttered some heathen
stuff, an' rattled a little bell, she sometimes went to the door and
stroked her face and kissed her hand to the sun, an' somehow I got the
idee she was the same as the pretty little girl that found me, an' the
notion of the change made me cry agin. The next ten days I don't
know much about, only they had a regular doctor once or twice; an'
all at once I woke one clear morning, an' there set the pretty little
Cherokee, an' my head was all right agin.
"But law, stranger, I was that weak! They was white Cherokees
that picked me up-the man a Scotchman, married to a half-blood
woman, and some of the best folks I ever struck. It was weeks before I could walk a quarter; then I got strong pretty fast, and bimeby
along came dad huntin' for me. An' that girl-well, I reckon she
spared nothin' that cabin could afford to help me get well. She used
to sing the Cherokee songs, and her mother would tell all about the
travels and troubles of the tribe from the time they left the Yemas



WESTERN WILDS.


see. in Carolina, till now. And when I was able to go it seemed like
a dream-as if I hadn't been there a week. It was over two years
I'd been gone, but every thing was right at home. After that I had
business every two or three months down in the Cherokee Nation, an'
all at once the troubles started up again. The rights of it I no more
understood than I did the other trouble, only that Jackson had
come in President, and took the part of Geawgey and Alabama agin
the Injins, an' swore they'd got to go anyhow, an' then they quarreled among themselves agin. Then her father died-the little white
Cherokee I mean-and her mother was all put out about the troubles,
but finally said she must go with her people, and claim her headrights on the land where they was to settle.  Then I spoke to the
little girl-well, to make a long story short, I've tried for thirty years
to pay up, but I'm still in her debt, an' to me she's just as pretty as
she was the mornin' she found me in the woods."
And now I was sure it was no fancy, for the "old woman" had
crossed the hearth and taken the gray head in her hands; the sad,
dark eye was again lighted with the gleam of youthful love, the
wrinkles gave place to smiles, and the worn face was transformed into
something far beyond the beautiful. It was divine.
"So your troubles ended in joy at last," said I.
"Yes, I reckon you may say so;" then, with his pipe relighted,
he puffed away in silence. He had acquired one habit of his stolid
Indian friends-the habit of having fits of silence, waiting on the stimulus of smoke. Two lads of sixteen or seventeen years came in with
the proceeds of a day's hunt.,
"Our grandsons," said the hostess, in a half-apologetic tone, " and
about all the dependence we've got now."
This was her first and last observation, and we seemed in a fair way
to smoke the evening away in silence, when one of the young men
threw a fresh knot on the fire. It blazed up brightly, and, with Indian suddenness, the old man broke out again:
"It was a bad thing, a bad, mean thing, the way them people was
rooted out. Just think of a whole people, sixteen or eighteen thousand, lots of 'em with good farms, an' houses, an' shops, an' startin'
schools an' newspapers, havin' to pull up whether or no, with soldiers
to prod them along with bayonets, an' go away off to a country they
didn't like, an' where lots an' lots of 'em died! Well, that's what
they done."
' You mean the Cherokees."
"Yes, my wife's folks all went with 'em. So we bought a. place of




A WESTERN CHARACTER.


33


a Cherokee that was leaving, an' worked it five years, an' got every
thing fixed beautiful, with lots of stock and grain. But it seemed like
they was no luck in that cussed country; anyhow, I was turned out
bag an' baggage."
"Turned out! How? Did you lose your land?"
"Well, yes; it amounted to that finally."
He seemed desirous of giving the story, and yet was reluctant to
begin.
" But how did it happen?" I persisted.
" Well, stranger, I never just got the right of it, an' for a long time
I never liked to think of it, for I always got mad an' swore under my
breath, an' it worried the old woman, an' made me lose sleep, an' so
I've pretty much quit thinkin' about it. You see when the Injins
left, there was a deal of swindlin'. Most of 'em was ignorant, an'
some signed away their land when drunk, an' a few rascally Injins
traveled 'round with the speculators, signin' away others' rights, an'
swearin' they was the ones. A man just come up one day with a
deed to my land, an' the court pow-wowed awhile about it and said
it was his'n, an' I just had to clear."
"But you had your stock."
"Well, no, not exactly. You see I lawed him awhile, an' the court
made me pay for that, an' my lawyer cost something; an' the height
of it was, when the thing was done I just put my wife on the only
hoss we had left, with a little one behind her, an' the baby in her
arms, an' me an' the oldest boy walked, an' we went back to Tennessee."
"And began again without a cent!"
"Well, not that exactly. I raised some money in a year or two.
But somehow it didn't seem the old thing to me there, an' so we come
over west of the mountains, an' got a little piece of land in Coffee
County, an' that was our home till we come out here. After all we've
got along, an' I've never been in jail but once."
"In jail! Why you never committed any crime?"
" No, but come mighty nigh it once-near enough to be took u-p an'
mighty nigh hung for it. But that was out in Iowa."
" So you did take another trip, after all."
" Yes; it was along o' the boys, specially brother Joe-him that 1
always sot most store by. Joe married young-married an Irish girl
in the neighborhood, though all of us opposed it. I could see she
had temper; but every feller's got to take his chances on that, anyhow.
You know how that is."
3




WESTERN WILDS.


No, I can't say as I do. But how did he get along?"
"Well, there was trouble. An' bimeby I persuaded Joe if they'd
get away from both their folks it would be better; so he went to Injeanny, and then to Illinoy. Well, it seems like when folks get started
that way they keep goin' and goin'. One place is too hot and another
too cold, an' here its sickly an' there they's bad neighbors, and so on.
Leastways it was that way with Joe, and finally he landed in the Halfbreed Tract in Iowa. At first he could not say enough in praise of
the country. Joe was a great scholar; he could write like a schoolmaster, an' cipher as fast as he could make the figures; but my wife
had to read the letters an' answer for me. All at once we got no more
letters for two or three years, and then come one with just a few lines,
an' it wound up: 'I've writ so often an' got no answer, I'm discouraged, but I'll try once more. Come an' sec old Joe before he
dies!'
"Nothin' could a' stopped me after that. I fixed up every thing
snug about home, an' got Ben, my youngest brother, to stay while I
was gone, an' run down the Tennessee an' up the Mississip to St.
Louis. Then I conceited I might need all my money, so I took a job
on another boat to Nauvoo, where I landed all right, but soon found
I'd run right into the trouble.
"It was the year after the Mormon prophet was killed, an' the
whole country was up a boomin'. I only knowed Joe lived back in
the country somewhere on the other side, an' when I asked about roads
they looked at me like I was a pirate. I had to give account of myself half a dozen times 'fore I got out of town, an' then like enough
when I'd step off I'd overhear some feller say, ' D-n him, he's one of
'em, and a spy at that.' Over the river it was jist as bad.  Every
body was afraid of every body else they didn't know. If I went nigh
a house when the men was out, liker'n not the woman 'd bolt the door
an' set a dog on me, or run out toward the fields and holler for the
men. Every body carried a gun, or a club, or a knife, an' I never seed
so many big an' savage dogs-one or two at every house; an' they
looked jist as snappy an' suspicious as the people, an' watched round
close an' stuck by the women whenever a stranger Some along. One
man I asked a civil question about the road, an' he only grinned an'
said, 'Your safest road's back towards Nauvoo; they hang horse
thieves over here.' An' that night where I stopped they stood with
the door open about an inch, an' made me answer a hundred questions
'fore they'd let me in. Lord, such a catekismen I was put through!an' didn't half want to let me in then. It was jist the Cherokee coUrn



A WESTERN CHARACTER.


35


try over agin, an' they might as well a been at war for any comfort
they took.
" But next day I found Joe's, and it was the poorest, meanest house
on the Tract. I walked in, an' what do you think I seed? Thar was
my dear Joe sittin' all bent up, an' poor an' thin, an' lookin', though
not over forty, like a man o' sixty.  He'd rastled with ager an' roomatiz time about till nothin' was left for any sickness to tack on to, an'
all the while that Irish wife o' his tormentin' him to death. When I
saw him I never said a word-I couldn't-but I jist took him in my
arms, an' for the first time in all my troubles I broke down an' cried!
It done Joe no end o' good to see me, but it wa'nt for long. She soon
spilt our comfort. She was a spitfire when he married her, an' you understand age an' bad luck hadn't improved her any-what with bein,
out among such rough people, losin' her children, an' livin' in a cabin
with a sick man, an' mighty little to go on, for they was poor as the
low-wines o' pond-water."
Only the western traveler who has been compelled to suck up moisture from a prairie slough, or lie down and drink out of a wagon track,
can appreciate the force of this simile. It is scarcely possible to conceive of a more unsatisfactory drink.
"She could swear like an ox-driver, an' when
she took a tantrum every thing was ammunition
that come to her hand-the poker or an old skillet-handle, it was all one to her. But I stood
her off, and was gettin' Joe cheered up right
smart, when one mornin' I was everlastingly
took back by seein' a crowd of men with guns   iv
comin' up to the gate. 'What does them men
want?' sez I. 'You, like enough,' sez she, snap-      f
pin'-turtle style. An', sure enough, it was me.
They snatched me right out of the house, with-        j% >
out a word o' why, an' I thought my time had           1/
come. They was all sorts o' talk about an awful murder, an' two or three o' the lot was hot  RS. JOE'S TANTRMS
DIRS. JOE'S "TANTRZUMS.',
to hang me up. But the captain said, ' No; every fellar should have a fair trial-Mormon or old settler, it was all
the same.' They took me down to a camp in the woods, where they
was more'n a hundred men, some comin' and goin' all the time, an'
nearly all drinkin', and the drunker they got the more dangered I
felt. One chap stuck his face nearly agin mine, an' sez he, 'Didn't
you help kill Miller and Liecy?' 'No, sez I.  'Didn't you come




36


WESTERN WILDS.


sneakin' along the brush road from Nauvoo t'other day, then?' says he.
'No,' sez I, and was goin' on to explain, when he yells out, 'You're
a d-d lying Mormon, an' I've a mind to shoot the guts out o' you,'
'an the captain stopped him. I noticed the captain didn't touch the
whisky, an' that hoped me a good deal.
"They took me an' five others to a big house, an' kept us all day an'
night, an' then I heard what it was all about. An' no wonder the people was excited. It skeered me jist to hear it. It was at the only
house I'd stopped at on the way where the folks was easy an' civil like.
They was a Dutchman named Miller and his son-in-law Liccy lived
there; an' they was jist from some old civil country place in Pennsylvany, or some'rs back there, where nobody's afraid or locks their
doors at night; an' these men had come on the Tract to buy land. It
was talked round that tlie old man had five thousand dollars in a trunk,
an' a job was put up by some fellers in Nauvoo. They spied 'round a
day or two, an' one night three men busted in the door an' fell to
shootin' an' cuttin' every thing they come to. The whole house was
dashed with blood. The old man fit like a tiger. He was a Dunkard
preacher, an' as stout as an ox, an' I mind well it was told 'round for a
fact that he nearly killed one o' the men jist with his naked fists; an'
when they run a long butcher-knife into his breast, he was so big it
didn't go half way through, an' he whipped 'em off an' fell dead in the
yard! What with the old man's fightin', and the women screamin',
an' the dogs a barkin', the fellers was skeered off an' never got a cent
o' the money. Then a neighbor galloped to Montrose, a town nigh
there, an' raised the yell, an' in a little while the Hawkeyes, as they
called theirselves, was out, an' that day they sarched every corner in
the county. It was the roughest time for strangers you ever read of.
If you ever seed a lot o' cattle bellerin' 'round where one had been
shot, you've an idee.
" They was some that even proposed to hang all of us to be sure an
catch the right one; an' what made it worse we was as much skeered
of each other as we was of the Hawkeyes. But they was one man
named Bird in our lot who cheered us up a good deal; an' pretty soon
they got on the right trail, an' it led straight to Nauvoo; but the Mormons wouldn't give the fellers up. Then the sheriff took a whole boat
load of men to.Nauvoo, an' they had a big meetin', an' threatened
war, but finally he got the men he had writs for, an' got 'em in jail;
but the sheriff had his doubts, an' set up a game on 'em. They was
two brothers named Hodges, an' he took four men of about their
build, an' set 'cm altogether, an' had Liecy, who lived some days,




A WESTERN CHARACTEIR.


37


carried in to look at 'cm. The Hawkeyes had us along, for they was
bound to catch somebody; an' it was the soleninest time I ever seed.
The two Hodges was as cool as cowcumbers, but the other four men
was skeered nearly to death. Liecy took a long look, an' then
pinted his finger at the Hodges, an' says he: 'There's the man that
shot me, an' there's the man that knifed me!'
"And that settled their hash. So we was all turned loose, an' Bird
an' me made tracks for Joe's. When we got nigh the house, we heard
an awful racket, an' run in, an' she had Joe down beatin' him with
his own crutch. They'd had another row, an' she'd sort o' got the
best of it. I snatched the weepin' outen her hand; then she swore at
us, an' lit out on the road with a partin' blessin', an' that's the last
we ever seed o' her."
"Bolted, did she?"
"Rather that way, stranger. But what do you think that woman
done? Went straight to Montrose, an' swore to my havin' bogus
money, an' the very next cay they put me in jail-socked me right in
with them two Hodges-an' I never felt so mean an' streaked in all
my life. I had no learnin' 'cept to read a little, an' that was the first
I ever felt bad about it. One of the sheriff's men, Hawkins Taylor,
was real kind, an' got me some things an' a lot o' copies set. I put
my whole head to it, an' in jest three weeks, sir, I wrote a nice letter
to the old woman-didn't tell her where I boarded, though-an' then
I felt easier. If it hadn't been for that, I'd 'agone crazy, shut up so
with them Hodges. I've seen 'em more'n once since, in my sleep.
They swore an' sung an' joked an' held up pretty stiff-they had an
idee their friends in Nauvoo would take 'em out-but bimeby their
brother there was found one morning with his throat cut, jist after he'd
seen the head Mormons an' raised a row with 'em about givin' up these
two; an' then they sort o' lost hope. It was no go. Iowa was up then,
an' the Mormons might as well a'tried to take 'em from Gineral Jackson's army. I was turned loose finally, the day before they was hung.
"They was people come a hundred miles to see it, an' camped out in
wagons. They had so little fun on the Tract, it was a great treat
to see somebody hung. Joe an' me was there, an' that's the first an'
last sight of that kind I ever took. I've seen plenty killed, but not
that way. We sold Joe's place, an' got him home, an' he picked up
mightily in old Tennessee. For an East Tennessee man no other
place is as good as the mountains. Only place I've seed to compare
vith it was in Californy."
"What! Have you been to California, too?"




38


WESTERN WILDS.


"Took a little trip out there."
" Little trip! It is considered a pretty big one. Did you go for gold?"
" Some'at, but more on account o' the boys."
"Your brothers again?"
" No, my own boys. You might say I went to keep them from
goin', for I suspicioned it was all foolishness, from the start. I reckon
you don't remember the big excitement. No? Well, it swept all
Tennessee like a fire in prairie grass. I first heard it one day at Manchester, when the Whigs had a pole-raisin' along o' the election o' old
Zach Taylor, an' a man jist from Noo York spoke, an' said old Zach
had conquered for us a country with more gold in it than any nation
on earth had. Pretty soon the news come thick. They said men just
dug gold out o' the rocks-thousands in a day. You ought to
heard the stories that was told for solemn facts. One man said a
feller dug out one lump worth eight hundred thousand dollars, an'
as he set on it, a feller come by with a plate o' pork an' beans, an' he
offered him fifty thousand for it, an' the feller stood him off for seventy-five thousand. It was in the Nashville paper, an' so every
body in our parts believed it.                            I
" Then every loose-footed man wanted to go. Some jist throwed
down their tools an' started; an' some men that was tied with families,
actually set down an' cried 'cause they couldn't go. My boys was as
crazy as the rest. But they was only sixteen an' eighteen, an' I seed
it wouldn't do. So I said: 'Boys, let me go, an' I'll let you know in
time,' an' then I bound 'em to take care o' their mother till I sent for
'em. It would a' been ruination for them young innocent boys to go
off with such a lot o' men. Jest as soon as the Tennessee was up so
boats could run over Muscle Shoals, a company of forty pof us shipped
teams an' started, an' landed at Independence, Missouri, the last o'
March. The whole country was under water, but our fellers was
crazy to git on; so they hitched up and started right across the Kaw
an' into the Delawares' country. But it was all foolishness to start so
early. Accident after accident we had. The mud was thicker an'
stickier every day, an' all the creeks was up; but the men kept up a
hoopin' an' swearin', an' often had to double teams, an' sometimes we'd
stick an' pull out two or three wagon tongues 'fore we'd get through.
I never seed men so crazy to git on. They whipped an' yelled, an'
wouldn't listen to reason. They was plenty started three weeks after
us, an' passed us on the road. An' what was strange, the trains that
laid by an' kept Sunday, got to Californy first. You wouldlt't believe
it, but I've heard hundreds say the same thing.




A WESTERN CHARACTER.


39


" Bimeby we got righted up al' on dryer ground, an' went on after
killin' two or three hosses an' leavin' one wagon. The trains got
strung out all along the trail, so we had grass an' game plenty along
up the Blue River an' over to the Platte. There we struck the Mormon emigration an' all the Californy trains that went that way. The
whole country was et out, an' the Injins threatened, an' the men got
to quarrelin'. I tell you it takes a mighty good set o' men to travel
together three thousand miles an' not fuss. Sometimes it was Whig
and Democrat, an' then it was Tennessee agin Geawgey. I tell you
when men are tired an' dirty they'll quarrel about any thing. About
half a dozen swore Californy was all humbug, an' turned back, an' at
Laramie Forks the company split into two. At South Pass our half
split agin, an' ten of us went off with a company to go the new route,
south of the Salt Lake. We got to the Mormon City all beat out, an'
more'n half a mind not to go a mile further. Plenty got there in
worse humor than us. Some had split up till it was each man for himself, an' some actually divided wagons, an' made two carts out o' one,
or finished the trip on bosses. We took a rest, an' traded every thing
with the Mormons, givin' two of our hosses for one fresh one, an'
finally got off in pretty good shape agin.
" But all we'd seed was nothin' to the country from there on. Rocks
an' mountains an' sand; an' sand, an' rocks an' mountains-miles on
miles of it. Sometimes the water was white as soapsuds with alkali,
an' sometimes as red as brick-dust, not one time in five sweet an'
clean. I reckon I swore a thousand times if I ever got home agin
nothin' stronger 'n cold water should pass my lips. I've drove all day
'thout seein' a spear o' green, or a speck of any thing but sand; an' if
we got grass once a day, we was in luck. Every day the men swore
nothin' could beat this, an' the next day it was always worse. I reckon
God knows what he made that country for-he haint told any body,
though.
"At last we got into a region that was the hind end o' creationseventy miles 'thout a drop o' water or a spear o' grass! Nothin' but
hot sand an' beds of alkali as white as your shirt. The trains used to
start in one afternoon an' drive two nights an' a day, an' get to water
the second mornin'. The whole way was lined with boxes an' beds an'
clothes, an' pieces of wagons, one thing an' another the trains ahead
had left, an' the last ten miles you might a' stepped from one carcass
to another on the dead bosses an' mules an' oxen. Two o' our men got
crazy as loons-you can see such strange things on them deserts. My
head was clear as a bell, an' yet half the time I could see off to one




40


WESTERN WILDS.


side of us a train jest like our'n, only the men an' hosses ten times as
big, an' jist as like as not they'd raise in the air an' move off upside
down. It was sort o' skeery, an' no mistake. We left four or five
dead bosses on that tract, but when we got to Carson River, it was too
pretty a sight to tell about. There was sweet, clean water an' grass an'
trees an' trains strung along for miles a restin' their stock. Some of
our men run right into the water an' swallowed an' swallowed till they
staggered like drunk men. All the rest of the way was in the mountains, but grass
and   water  was
plenty, all' the
trees-how I did
admire to see 'cm!
Hundreds o' miles
-I hadn't seen a
bush as thick as
my thumb.
"Well, we was
into Californy at
last, an' it looked
like heaven to me.
(_                                             There  was   big
trees, an' the wind
blowin' soft away
throughthegulches made music all
day.  In   some
places the air was
jist  sweet tiat
blowed out o' the
" MADE MUSIC ALL DAY."
week after week the sky was so blue, an' the air so soft, it seemed
like a man could stand any thing.     An' no matter how hard
you worked in the day, or how hot it was, it was always so
cool an' nice at night; you could sleep anywheres-on the ground
or on a pile o' limbs, in the house or out o' doors, an' never catch
cold.




A WESTERN CHARACTER.


41


"But if the country was like heaven, the folks was like the other
place, I reckon. Such sights-such doins'! I'd never 'a believed
men would carry on so. I went to minin' in the Amador, an' first
they wasn't a woman in a hundred miles. And when one did come ill
one day on a wagon, the men all run to look at her as if she was a
show. Better she'd a' stayed away, an' twenty more like her that
come in when the diggins begun to pan out rich. I believe every
woman was the cause o' fifty fights an' one or two deaths. It made
me mad to see men fight about 'em, when they knowed jest what they
was-mlen that had mothers an' sisters back in the States, an' some on
'em.sweethearts an' wives. They was mostly Mexican women, an'
some Chilaynos an' South Spainers; an' somehow it was a sort o' comfort to me that there was hardly ever an American woman among the
lot.
"Blimeby these diggins sort o' worked out, an' I went down on
Tullomne, an' then mined about Angells an' Murphy's Camp, an'
tinlallv to Sonora. Then all sorts o' new ways o' minin' come in, but
they took capital, an' I let 'em alone. Men was all the time runnin'
about from camp to camp-so many new excitements-no matter how,
richl the ground where we was, some feller would come in with a big
story al),out a new gulch, an' away they'd go. I've seen a thousand
men at work along one creek, an' a big excitement break out, an' before
night they wouldn't be twenty left. Sometimes a man would get title
to l)ig ground, an' hold it at a thousand dollars, an' when the rush
come vyo  could buy him out with two mules an' a pair o' blankets..Many an' many a time I've seen a man go off that way with a little
mncve an' never be seen alive. Like enough his body was found away,
down the river, an' like enough it was never found. It got so they
was men there that would cut a throat for ten dollars. It wasn't all
one way, though. More'n once the robbers would tackle some gritty
man that was handy with his 'barkers,' an' he'd get away with two or
three of 'em. Every body carried the irons with him, ready to pop at
a minute's notice, an' if a man traveled alone, he took his life in his
hand.
"It wa'nt long though till we got some kind o' government. Californy was made a State the year after I got there, but that didn't signify in the mountains; an' at Angell's Camp we chipped in together
and hired regular guards to look after every suspicious man. The
worst thing was to get down from the mines to Frisco; for if it was
known that a man was a goin' to leave, it was 'sposed he'd made his
pile, an' had it with him. At last I made a little raise-that was in




42


WESTERN WILDS.


the spring of '52-an' concluded to come home. Me.an' my partner
jest laid down our tools one night right where we worked, an' packed
up, al' when the camp was asleep lit out over the hills 'thout sayin' a
word to any human bein.' Got home 'round by Panama all right, an'
fouind every thing chipper, al' when I figured up I was just three
hundcred a head on the three year's trip. Better stayed at home for
gold-but it saved the boys."
"Then you stayed at home and took comfort for the rest of your
life, I suppose."
There was dead silence. The " old woman" rose and retired to the
other cabin; the youths had long before ascended the ladder which led
to their bed in the garret, and my host seemed to have finished. But
it was evident there was something more, and it was the most painful
part of his story. The old wall-sweep clock struck nine in a loud,
aggressive tone, which roused the old man, and he resunied in a different manner-a mingling of regret and indignation:
" It was a bad thing, a mighty bad thing, for old Tennessee, when the
Whig party died. I felt in my bones no good could come of it. But
I didn't think it would touch me so close as it did. I knowed trouble
would come, but couldn't see jist how. You know all about that. Our
folks was all agin the war from the start. I was down at Manchester
the day they hauled down the stars an' stripes, an' sez I, 'Men, you've
bit off more'n you can chaw;' an' they laughed at me. But I knowed
them Northern men-seed 'em in Californy. Slow, mighty slow, to
start a fight, but awful to hold on.
"But I sha-'n't dwell on this. In less'n three months, sir, both my
boys was in it. I held up a year or more; then come both armies
sweepin' South, an' what our folks left the Federals took. I thought
to make a crop yet, an' fixed up a good deal; then come both armies
back north'rd agin an' swep' me clean. But my old woman an' the
girls turned out an' helped, an' in '63 we 'scaped a long time. Then
they come South agin, an' we give it up. I really believed they'd
drive each other back an' for'rd there for years. Next year I got up
one mornin', an' there was a letter stuck under the door by some gewrillers, an' it said both my boys was bad shot, an' in the hospital at
Atlanta. I felt death in my bosom right then. But I sha'n't dwell on
this. An hour after sundown I was off on the only hoss we had left,
an' by daylight I was in the sand-hills along the Tennessee. The
country was full o' soldiers, but I got round all of 'em an' to Atlanta.
It was no good-no good. Men was dyin' all round, an' families broke
up an' scattered, an' women an' children naked an' starvin'! What




A rES TERN CHARACTER.


43


was my troubles to them?  The boys was fur gone, an' no medicines
anl nothin' to help 'em could be got  It was a might o' comfort,
though, to see 'em 'fore they died, an' take back some keepsakes to
their mother. Oh, stranger, that war was a powerful sight o' trouble
to us all!
" They was buried, along with hundreds of others, an' I was gettin'
ready to start back, when up steps a chap, an' sez he, 'Old man, we
want you-can't spare a man now that can shoot.' An' I jist had a
chance to send word home, an' then took the place my oldest boy had;
an' nigh a year after, when that regiment give in to old Sherman, I
was one of the thirty-six-all that was left of a big regiment.
"* * * I found my folks at a neighbors, but on my place they
wasn't a stick nor a rail. I hadn't the heart to try it there agin. We
got word that my wife's mother had died in the Cherokee Nation, an'
left a good claim; so I turned over the Tennessee land to my son-inlaw (he married my only girl), an' had him take the other grand-children, too, an' he outfitted us for the Nation.
"My wife proved up on her Cherokee blood, an' I was let in under
their law as bein' married to a Cherokee that had head-rights, an' we
took her mother's place. Nice fixed up, too, it was, on Grand River,
jist across from Fort Gibson, an' there my grandsons that come with
us made two crops, an' then all at once the troubles about the Cherokees started up again.  I turned cold 'round the heart when I heabd
it-I did want rest so bad. Then I looked back only forty years, to
the time when all the country, from Tennessee here, was wild, an'
President, Congress, an' all said if the Cherokees would only come out
here they wouldn't be bothered for ages an' ages, an' now this country's
older 'I Tennessee was then. Neither did tiny man own his land in
the Cherokee Nation; it was common, an' we owned jist the improvements. So I took a good long look at the matter, an' sez I, 'Once
more, Natie, dear (that's my wife), we've got to go once more; this is
too good a country for Injins to keep if white men want it, an' you can
swear they will long 'fore we die.'
"So I traded that claim for this piece up here, an' my grandsons
stuck, an' I guess we'll get along. What I dread more'n any thing is
another war."
"Why, what reason have you to dread it?"
"'Burnt child,' you know. All my life I've been a man of peace,
an' yet every fuss that come up hurt me. Three times I've been broke
up an' ruined by wars an' troubles I llad no hand in bringin' on. Don't
you think they'll keep peace while I live?"




44                     WESTERN WILDS.
There was for a brief moment a new look in his eye-the eager,
pleading look of a hunted animal. I reassured him, and his face resumed its usual air of placid humor and homely philosophy.
"The story's about done. Hope I hav'nt bored you. It's a sor'ter
queer world, aint it?  Sometimes I think it jist was to be so, an' no
help, an' sometimes I conceit I ought to done better; but anyhow, all I
git outen the whole of my experience is that a man must keep peggin'
away. But you're noddin'. Better you go to sleep early." And directing me to the ladder, this uncomplaining heir of adverse fortune
sought his bed in the other cabin.
Here was a man who had traveled over half the continent, been
farmer, boatman, miner, soldier, and Indian trader, and never imagined
that he had done more than his duty. Perhaps there is no moral to
be extracted from his story; yet it somehow seems to me one on which
discontented respectability, cushioned in an easy chair, might profitably ponder.




CHAPTER III.


THE JOURNEY TO UTAH.
IT was an era of change and fierce excitement. Omaha was in her
speculative period. Daily hundreds of adventurous fortune-seekers set
out for the mountains, and daily the refluent tide landed half as many
of the returning —a very few fortunate beyond their hopes, many about
as well off as when they started, and quite as many utterly bankrupt.
Such a country could not but develop strange characters; a man either
failed, lost hope, and sank into a " floater," or developed an amazing
capacity for lighting on his feet at every fall.
There, for instance, was my friend Will Wylie, who had seen the elephant in its entirety, from trunk to tail. He went out in 1862, and
"struck it rich" on his first vent-.
ure in the 'illines of Montana;
started with teams and wagons to   b
California, and on the way was
robbed of every ounce of his           t    -
"dust" by the then swarming
"road agents."  They kindly left
him his stock, with which he got
through to California, and thence
made a highly successfill trip to  Wl
Arizona.  There he turned his
means into a freighting company,
and beguiled the lonesome hours        HIS LAST CHANCE.
of his long drives over mountains and deserts by calculating his,eertain
wealth and early return to the States. When near Fort W.hipple, and
not three hours ride from a well-manned United States post, the
Apaches attacked his train, stampeded all his stock but the mule he
rode, and burnt all his property they could not carry off. By the light
of his blazing wagons he fled, with an arrow sticking in his cheek; his
frightened animal ran till it dropped dead, but fortunately not till it
had carried him into the quadrangle of the fort. He was picked up insensible, and in six weeks was out again with the loss of one eye. Returning to Montana, he joined the Vigilantes, and had the pleasure
(45)




46


WESTERN WILDS.


of presiding at a " neck-tie sociable " where two of the men who had
robbed him were hanged.  Some more " dust " was obtained out of the
old claim in which he still held an interest, and in 1867 he came down
on the Union Pacific as a trader. He had what he called a "big biz "
at each successive terminus town, and was now in Omaha to buy a
"little bill" of ten thousand dollars' worth of provisions, tobacco and
" bitters" for the new metropolis beyond Cheyenne. Three years after
I found him away up in the mountains of Utah, where he had put all
his available means in a new and half-developed mine, and was sinking
on the vein with tireless energy, in the daily hope of striking a bonanza.
These hopeful ones rarely make the most money, but without them
when would the Great West ever have been developed?
There, too, was Jim Garraway (who, however, will never recognize
himself by this name), born and reared a gambler-never knew much
else from boyhood. His father, companions, friends, all were gamblers; as a baby he played with faro checks, and learned English in
the atmosphere of pool rooms. At twenty gaming was his infatuation. Now he had thoroughly reformed, never touched a card, and
was in a responsible position in Wells, Fargo & Co.'s employ. Two
years after he surprised me by a call at my office in Corinne, Utah.
He was freighting thence to Montana, the owner of mules and wagons
worth five thousand dollars. One evening, when idle time hung heavy
on his hands, he strayed into one'of our C(sporting rooms."  The
smooth-spoken proprietor who so styled it, might have added, " What
is sport to us is death to you," for Jim's old infatuation returned. He
staked a pile of "c chips" and won; then made and lost, and made and
lost alternately, selling his stock when "broke," and scarcely ate or
slept till the tail of his last mule was "coppered on the jack."
Repentant and returning Mormons were numerous, but seldom
noisy. One I met who had been back and forth, in and out of the
Church, three times. Now he declared with profane emphasis that
this was the last time; he had seen enough. One little party of a
hundred recusant Saints, of all ages from six months to seventy years,
had made the journey in primitive style with slow and patient oxteams, all the adults walking. They had left Salt Lake Valley as
soon as the cations were clear of snow, and been three months on the
road. Their condition was wretched; for in those days, under the
iron-clad laws of Utah, no apostate ever got out of the Territory
with any thing worth leaving. The Mormon priesthood taught the
apostolic doctrine of "laying on of hands," and, the dissenters added,
what they laid hands on they generally got away with. These people




THE JO URNE Y TO UTAH


47


were destined to a "Josephite" settlement in Iowa, and at Council
Bluffs they met three hundred new converts on their way to Utah, in
charge of a bishop and platoon of elders. But there was very little
intercourse between the two. The latter were fresh, hopeful, cheery,
singing the "songs of Zion," adl rejoicing in their speedy escape from
"Babylon;" the recusants sad, weary, half mad and wholly heartsick. Quick to curse Brigham, they were yet but half cured of their
folly, and prepared to
surrender m i n d  a n d
conscience to  another
phase of the same delusion. The elders wat  Id
ed their new recruits
without appearing to do        ~
so, and at sight of the  K        K7
others were full o f     -             __
warnings and allusions    -
to Demas and those who
".AYING ON OF HANDS."
kept not the faith, and
were given over to be damned. In those days most of the dissenting
Saints left Utah; now they remain, and with the skeptical young Mormons are building up a party which is very troublesome to Brigham.
Council Bluffs was once almost a Mormon town, and many places
in the vicinity were settled entirely by that sect. Apostates by thousands are scattered through Iowa, in faith "half Mormon and half
nothing,'" but in practice good and industrious citizens. Mormonism
does not make a man a fanatic, unless he goes where the Church has
the majority and rules the country. Florence, six miles above Omaha,
with as pretty a site as I saw in Nebraska, was the original winter
quarters of the main body in their great exodus; and according to the
sanguine belief of the Gentiles who succeeded them, was to have been
the great city instead of Omaha. It had the start, and no man can
say why it should not have held it. But there is a mysterious law
which governs the location of great cities, and Florence is now only
a pretty suburb to the metropolis of Nebraska.
The last of July, 1868, I took the evening train for Laramie, then the
terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. For a hundred and fifty miles
from Omaha the Platte Valley, which the road follows, is one of the richest in the world. Then a change begins, and the country is higher,
dryer, and more barren with every hour's travel toward the mountains.
It is all the way up-hill. Omaha is 912 feet above sea-level; Cheyenne




48


WESTERN WILDS.


5,600; and through all that long incline of 525 miles, the road-bed
maintains a nearly uniform up-grade of ten feet to the mile. At a few
places it sinks to a level, and for two short stages there is a down
grade westward: from the Omaha level to the Platte Valley, and from
the " divide " down to Crow Creek, On which Cheyenne is situated.
Nature evidently designed this valley for a railroad route. The Indian
had used it from time immemorial; tle voyageur and trapper trailed
it for a hundred years before California was known in the East; then
the gold-hunters, Oregon settlers and Mormons turned the trail into a
broad wagon road, and lastly came the railroad, obedient to the same
necessities for water and a smooth route. West of Loup Fork we
found the soil a little more sandy, and the grass shorter, with a dry and
withered look; and this change went on till at last we saw the heavy
verdure of the Missouri Valley no more, and were introduced to the
bunched and seeded grasses of the high,plains and Rocky Mountains.
North Platte, where we took breakfast, was once a roaring terminus
"city;" now a way station, with hotel and saloon attachment. Julesburg, 377 miles out, had been a busy city of 5,000 inhabitants; now
it was a wilderness of blackened chimneys and falling adobe walls, the
debris of a dead metropolis. In the old days of the overland stage, one
Julia, a Cherokee exile, kept the station hotel there; and in the cheerful frankness of Western life the place was known as "Dirty Jule's
Ranche."  Thence "Jule's," and finally Julesburg. Similarly " Robber's Roost" has been softened to Roosaville, and "Black Bills" to
Blackville. For three hundred miles we follow the course of the
Platte, a broad but dirty and uninviting stream, differing only from
a slough in having a swift current. Often a mile wide, but with no
more water than would fill an average canal, three inches of fluid running on top of several feet of moving quicksand; too thin to walk
on, too thick to drink, too shallow for navigation, too deep for safe
fording, too yellow to wash in, and too pale to paint with, it is the
most disappointing and useless river in America. Nevertheless, many
attempts have been made to navigate it, all ending in disaster. Notable among these was the venture of a party of hunters from  New
England, who started from Laramie in the spring of 1843 to run two
flats loaded with furs to St. Louis. After two months arduous toil,
often unloading and dragging their boats over sand-bars, they at last
abandoned them, cached the property, and walked to Council Bluffs,
where they arrived in July, nearly dead from fatigue and starvation.
Three hundred miles out, and the plains in all their vastness are
around us. The land rises into long ridges, stretching away swell on




THE JOURNEY TO UTAH.


49


swell as far as the eye can reach, as if the heaving ocean had suddenly
become firm fixed earth; and immense pampas spread away alternating
flint and gravel with strips of wiry, curly grass, or at rare intervals
a protected growth of stunted shrubs. Only the lowest vales contain
any cultivable land, and that, to be productive, requires irrigation; the
bright flowers of the Missouri Valley are seen no more, the lark-spur
alone retaining its hues; the wild sunflower and yellow saffron become
dust-hued and dwarfish, while milk-weed and resin-weed sustain a
sort of dying life, and cling with sickly hold to the harsh and forbid

/


'"THE GOOD OLD TIME."


ding soil. Now appear depressed basins, with saline matter dried
upon the soil, and long flats white with alkali, as if they had been
sowed with lime. This is the "Great American Desert" of early
geographers, a region practically worthless to the agriculturist, though
half its surface is of some value for grazing. Antelope and prairie dog
show themselves in considerable numbers, but it is too late for the
buffalo; the main line of their northward migration passed two months
befbre, nor are they to be seen as in the good old time the hunters tell
about. I shall not inflict upon the reader the standard description of
these animals, much less the account of dog, owl and rattlesnake as a
4




50


WESTERN WILDS.


happy family in one burrow; for this is meant to be a veracious chronicle, and though I have since spent many hours in "dog-towns," I do
not know such association to be a fact.
Passing the last and worst stage of the barren plains, we run down
into the little oasis on Crow Creek, and to the " Magic City" of Cheyenne. Its rapid rise and mad career had given it a national fame. On
the 3d of July, 1867, the first house was erected; on the 1st of November there was a population of 7,000, with a city government, a
municipal debt, and three daily papers. When spring dissolved the
snow banks and ice-packs from Sherman summit, the railroad pushed
on; Laramie became the metropolis, and Cheyenne sank to a quiet
town of perhaps 1,200 people. Its further decay was arrested by the
development of sheep-ranching, and its location as the junction of the
Denver Pacific; and now as the capital of Wyoming and most convenient outfitting point for the Black Hills, it looks forward to another
era of prosperity.
While I rested a few days at Cheyenne, the railroad was rapidly
pushing westward, and soon another "metropolis" was laid off beyond Laramie. From    Cheyenne the road bed is nearly level to
Hazard Station, officially pronounced the eastern base of the Rocky
Mountains; and thence the grade rises eighty feet per mile to Sherman, 8,342 feet above sea-level, and highest point on the Union
Pacific. Beyond that we have the magnificent scenery of Granite
Cafion and Virginia Dale, the last now seeming peaceful as an Arcadian dell, but with as bloody a history as any spot in the Rocky
Mountains. In the olden time it was the favorite abode of land
pirates, and every ravine in the vicinity was the scene of a murder.
Thence the road makes a sharp bend to the north, and we run rapidly
downward for forty miles to the new city of Laramie, already past
its greatness, and many of its inhabitants leaving for the next "metropolis." Laramie Plains, though 7,000 feet above sea-level, abound
in rich pastures; but westward the grassy slopes yield rapidly to barrenness, and at Medicine Bow we enter fairly on the three-hundredmile desert. In the worst part of this waste we found Benton, the
great terminus town, six hundred and ninety-eight miles from Omaha.
Far as eye could see around the town, there was not a green tree,
shrub, or spear of grass. The red hills, scorched and bare as if
blasted by the lightnings of an angry God, bounded the white basin,
on the north and east, while to the south and west spread the gray
desert till it was interrupted by another range of red and yellow hills.
The whole basin looked as if it might originally have been filled with




THE JOURNEY TO UTAH.


51


lye and sand, then dried to the consistency of hard soap, with glistening surface, tormenting alike to eye and sense.
Yet here had sprung up in two weeks-as if by the touch of Aladdin's Lamp-a city of three thousand people; there were regular
squares arranged into five wards, a city government of mayor and
aldermen, a daily paper, and a volume of municipal ordinances. It
was the end of the freight and passenger, and beginning of the construction division; twice every day immense trains arrived and departed, and stages left for Utah, Montana and Idaho. All the goods
formerly hauled across the plains came here by rail, and were reshipped, and for ten hours daily the streets were thronged with motley
crowds of railroad men, Mexicans and Indians, gamblers, "cappers,"
and saloon-keepers, merchants, miners, and mule-whackers. The
streets were eight inches deep in white dust as I entered the city of
canvas tents and pole-houses; the suburbs appeared as banks of dirty
white lime, and a new arrival with black clothes looked like nothing
so much as a cockroach struggling through a flour barrel.
" ONLY A MEMORY."
Benton is only a memory now. A section house by the road-side, a
few piles of adobes, tin cans and other debris mark the site where sales
to the amount of millions were made in two months. The genesis and
evolution of these evanescent railroad cities was from the overland
trade. Two hundred thousand people in Colorado, Utah, Montana and
Idaho had to be supplied from the States, and every ounce of freight
sent them was formerly hauled from six to sixteen hundied miles. This
trade successively built up Independence, Westport, Kansas City, Atchison, Leavenworth and Omaha; but as soon as the Union Pacific was
started it took that route. Hence those "roaring towns" at the successive termini, which sprang up like Jonah's gourd, and in most cases
withered away as suddenly when the road passed on. First on the list
was Columbus, Nebraska, and then Fort Kearney, where George
Francis Train confidently located the geographical center of the United
States, and future capital, and invested his money and his hopes.
Kearney is now a prosperous country village and Train a harmless
lunatic. North Platte suddenly rose from a bare sand bank to a city
of 4,000 people, with banks, insurance offices and city government, an




52


WESTERN WILDS.


aristocracy and common people, old settlers and first families. Three
months after it consisted, in the sarcastic language of the Julesburgers,
of a hotel, two saloons, a bakery, section-house and another saloon.
Then came Julesburg, the wickedest city on the list. For sixty-three
days there was a homicide every day; ten dance houses ran all night,
and thirty saloons paid license to the evanescent corporation.
The rise culminated at Cheyenne; thenceforward Laramie, Benton,
Green River City and Bryan grew successively smaller, and Bear
River City closed the chapter with a carnival of crime ending in a
pitched battle between citizens and roughs, in which twelve men were
killed and twenty wounded. But the history would be incomplete
without the annals of Wahsatch, built upon the summit of Wasatch
Mountains, 7,000 feet above the sea, in ten days of January, 1869,
while the mercury ranged from zero to ten degrees below. Despite
the intense cold, the sound of hammer and saw was heard day and
night, and restaurants were fitted up in such haste that meals were
served while the carpenters were putting on the second thickness of
weatherboarding. I ate my first breakfast there in one where the mercury stood at five degrees below zero! A drop of the hottest coffee
spilled upon the cloth froze in a minute, while gravy and butter solid.
ified in spite of the swiftest eater.
It was a " wicked city." During its lively existence of three
months it established a graveyard with forty-three occupants, of whom
not one died of disease. Some were killed by accident; a few got
drunk and were frozen; three were hanged, and several killed in a fight
or murdered; one "girl" stifled herself with charcoal fumes, and
another inhaled sweet death from subtle chloroform.
Transactions in real estate in all these towns were, of course, most
Lncertain; and every thing that looked solid was a sham. Red brick
fronts, brown stone fronts, and stuccoed walls, were found to have been
made to order in Chicago, and shipped in (pine) sections. Ready.
made houses were finally sent out in lots, boxed, marked and numbered; half a dozen men could erect a block in a day, and two boys
with screw-drivers put up a "habitable dwelling" in three hours. A
very good gray-stone stucco front, with plain sides, twenty by forty
tent, could be had for three hundred dollars; and if one's business happened to desert him, or the town moved on, he only had to take his
store to pieces, ship it on a platform car to the next city, and set up
again. There was a pleasing versatility of talent in the population of
such towns.
To return to Benton. The Mormon converts were going forward




THE JOURNEY TO UTAH.


53


in large parties; 4,000 left Europe for Utah in 1868, that being the
largest emigration of any year since the Church was founded. The
number of arrivals now scarcely equals that of the apostates. Freighting to Salt Lake was also active, and teamsters being in demand, I
took a position as engineer of a six-mule team, at a salary of forty dollars per month. Our "outfit " numbered ten wagons, sixty-one mules
and sixteen men, including a night-herder, wagon-boss and four passengers. The four hundred miles to Salt Lake occupied four weeks, twothirds of the way being through deserts of sand, soda and alkali, where
we thought ourselves fortunate in finding a patch of bunch-grass once
every twenty-four hours. The first night we formed corral at Rawlins Springs, and the next in a walled basin on the old stage road, at
what is called " Dug Springs." In the center of the basin was an alkaline lake which, moved by the evening breeze, looked like foaming
soapsuds; but on its margin was a spring of pure water. Thence we
moved on to the " Divide of the Continent," a plateau of sand and rock,
dotted with alkaline lakes in which " cat-fish with legs," as plainsmen
style them, are abundant. I afterward saw the same species at Canon
Bonito, Arizona, where the Navajo boys shot their arrows through
them to secure me a few specimens. Science classes them as siredons,
a species of lizards.
Leaving this unpleasant country by way of Bridger's Pass, we were
soon upon the westward slope, and for three days toiled down Bitter
Creek-the horror of overland teamsters-where all possible ills of
western travel are united. At daybreak we rose, stiff with cold, to
catch the only temperate hour for driving. By nine A. M. the heat
Mwas most exhausting. The road was worked up into a bed of blinding
white dust by the laborers on the railroad grade, and a gray mist of
ash and earthy powder hung over the valley, which obscured the sun,
but did not lessen its heat. At intervals the "Twenty-mile Desert,"
the "Red Sand Desert," and the " White Desert" crossed our way,
presenting beds of sand and soda, through which the half-choked men
and animals toiled and struggled, in a dry air and under a scorching
sky. In vain the yells and curses of the teamsters doubled and redoubled, blasphemies that one might expect to inspire a mule with diabolical strength; in vain the fearful "black-snake" curled and popped
over the animals' backs, sometimes gashing the skin, and sometimes
raising welts the size of one's finger. For a few rods they would struggle on, dragging the heavy load through the clogging banks, and then
stop exhausted, sinking to their knees in the hot and ashy heaps. Then
two of us would iunite our teams and drag through to the next solid




54                    WESTERN WILDS.
piece of ground, where, for a few hundred yards, the wind had removed
the loose heaps, and left bare the flinty and gravelly subsoil. Thus,
by most exhausting labor, we accomplished ten or twelve miles a day.
Half an hour or more of temperate coolness then gave us respite till
soon after sundown, when the cold wind came down, as if in heavy volumes, from the snowy range, and tropic heat was succeeded by arctic
cold with amazing suddenness. On the 27th of August my mules
were exhausted with heat; that night ice formed in our buckets as
thick as a pane of glass.
Thence across Green River we found Bridger Plains and the valley
_      ~of Bear River delightful by comparison,
and at noon of September 4th passed the
b_=t w: summit of the Wasatch and entered Echo
Canon. Two days we traveled down this
T                  great ravine, enjoying a succession of rotr bi             mantict views- sometimes down in the very
bed of the stream, and sometimes far up
the rocky sides of the cliff, where the
"dug-way" wound in and out along tlh
projecting "'benches."  Emerging thence
into Weber Valley, we came upon the first
gardens and cultivated fields I had seen for
a thousand miles. The Mormon dwellings
would have appeared poor and mean in-,   i    adeed in the States, but to one just from the
barren plains the valley was pretty enough.
PULPIT ROCK: ECHO CAsON.  The railroad now runs down Weber Caflon,
but we followed the old stage and wagon road southward up the Weber
and over the divide into Parley's Park.
Thence down the wild gorge known as Parleys Canon, where every
turn brings to view a fresh delight in the sublime and beautiful; and
out upon the "bench," on the evening of September 9th, we saw the
great valley of Jordan, and the Salt Lake spreading far to the north
and west. Twenty miles westward the Oquirrh Range glowed in the
clear air, a shining mass of blue and white.  Great Salt Lake extended beyond our sight to the northward, its surface glistening in the light of the declining sun, while to our right the
"City of the Saints'" as yet appeared but a white spot on the landscape. To our left the cation of the Jordan seemed to close, giving the
impression that that stream poured from the hills, while down the center of the valley the river shone like a glimmering band of silver. A




THE JOURNEY TO UTAH.


55


little farther and I marked the great dome of the Tabernacle, and then
the smaller buildings of Salt Lake City, rise out of the evening mirage,
with only the interest of a traveler, and little thinking of the years in
which that was to be my home, or in what mysterious ways I was to be
identified with its social and political combats.


THE GREAT SALT LAKE, UTAH.
But before I enter on the hackneyed themes of Utah and Mormonism, allow me, indulgent reader, to relieve the tedium of a merely personal narrative by giving the story of one who sought the Western
Wilds from more heroic motives than mine.




CHAPTER IV.


GEFFROY'S TRIALS.
WE sat, my partner Robert Geffroy and I, upon the rocky slope of
Griffith Mountain, that looks down upon Georgetown, Colorado. Two
thousand feet below us the city seemed sunk in a great cleft in the
earth; around it rose on all sides precipitous mountains, their summits
still covered with snow, though the June sun shone warm upqn them,
and the little pools fed by rivulets from the snow banks were bordered
by bright flowers. At our feet
the brawling brook formed a
ip  -cl                      clear pool, the usual resting
place of those who walked to
/.,                 the summit; a little below it
plunged by a series of musical
s tcascades into a granite can-on,
and was lost among the foot
hills. While our side of the
mountain was still in shadow,
\`~-'~~~                   beyond the town the line of
I iil                  shade and morning sunlight
crept slowly down the face of
Republican       Mountain.   My,      companion  gazed  long and
earnestly upon the sublime
"WE SAT UPON THE ROCKY SLOPE OF GRIFFITH scenery with that gentle melanMOUNTAIN."            choly which habitually shaded
his fine countenance. At length his dark eye, beautiful with the clear
depth peculiar to the Swiss mountaineer, moistened a little, and he fell
into one of his rare poetical moods. I had shared with him the vicissitudes of a miner's life, and had found the usually taciturn man of
some fifty years a most pleasing companion. Never intemperate, as
were so many of the older miners, never garrulous or boastful, there
were yet times when some undercurrent of intense thought bubbled to
the surface; then, in free converse in our cabin, he was the most fascinating of men. His language, with just enough of foreign accent,
(56)




GEFFRO Y'S TRIALS.


57


was that of one who had learned it from books rather than men; his
musical voice gave utterance to sentences loaded with poetic thoughts,
and his lightest remark would have borne the test of severest criticism.
To me he seemed a man of naturally ardent temperament and high
aims, but thwarted and long repressed, with mind turned perhaps to
unhealthful introspection. But to-day he was in an unusual mood; he
had just passed through one of his seasons of deep sadness, and, as it
were, unconsciously, sought relief in friendly confidences. A light remark from me on the many uncertainties and disappointments of a
miner's life led us on to a free discussion of the vexed questions of free
will and destiny.
"Are we," he asked, " indeed the authors of our course? do we succeed by our own endeavors or fail by our own errors? or is there a
chain of circumstances running concurrent with our daily lives, and
ever shaping them to alien issues?"
I defended with vehemence my views that we all make or mar our
own fortunes. He listened calmly, and replied:
Hear, then, my story, and learn how often the great movements of
war and politics crush the humblest lives, and that not his own acts
merely, but the acts of all his contemporaries, determine one's destiny."
Thus began a series of confidences, which, continued some evenings
in our cabin, gave me the incidents of anll eventful though humble life.
" I am, as you know, a native of beautiful Geneva, and my first recollections are of grand mountains, mirror-like lakes, and old monuments. Mine was a childhood of rare happiness. My Swiss mother
united to the earnest vigor of her race that wondrous insight into the
nature and feelings of childhood, which seems a special gift of God to
the German people. My French father, while he had none of that
levity or cynic indifference to all religions which so many of that race
affect, was yet happily free from superstition, jealous of priestcraft, and,
for one in his position, quite a devotee of learning. From our English
visitors and customers I early acquired a smattering of their language,
and some vague ideas of that liberty which I then, in childish ignorance, supposed they enjoyed.
" Our family life is now present to my memory as a happy union of
social love and intellect. My father recited the poems of Racine and
Corneille, my mother rehearsed the fairy legends of her people; both
delighted in the heroic annals of the Genevese, and loved to dwell on
the better days of that people. Around us was the sublime scenery of
Switzerland; our associations were largely with cultivated travelers,




58


VWESTERN TWILDS.


and poetry was inwrought with my childish nature. But my father
was still Frenchman enough to be given to the contemplation of vast
systems of social philosophy-that peculiarly French philosophy which
takes great and comprehensive principles on trust, and believes that
man, once they are taught him, charmed by their beauty and symmetry, will gladly embrace them. The federation of the world, the equalization of conditions, the abolition of poverty —these were the themes
that charmed his leisure hours, when not employed in the struggle to
further increase the inequality that was already great between himl and
his poorer neighbors. How pleasing is that philosophy by which great
principles are first to be established, upon which society and government are to be constructed like geometrical figures, and people modeled to fit and adopt them; but how much more practical and sensible
that cautious progress of your people and the English, which is taught
by events, and is sometimes willing to learn humbly at the tribunal of
facts.
"On such a nature as mine the daily hearing of these things had
momentoius influence. Had I been bred to trade, it might have gone
well. Commerce would have corrected the errors of an overheated
imagination, and contact with men as they are, proved a healthful corrective to too much contemplation of them as they might b,. But my
ambitious parents, who were vastly improved in circumstances by the
prosperous years that succeeded the general peace, and the return tide
of English travel, determined to bestow upon their only son a classical
education, at that day in Geneva thought to be the key to all prefernients in church or state. Even now I feel a pang at what must have
been the keenness of their disappointment. Once entered upon my
classical studies, a new world was opened to my impressible mind.
Mythology I found but dull-how couldl so grand a people have believed in such filthy deities?-but the heroes of classic annals set my
very soul on fire. Could it be that such men had lived-men that died
by battalions for the honor of their country, or ran upon their swords
rather than survive her liberty? I panted as I read, I breathed the
very spirit of Livy; I shed tears over what other school-boys called
the dull pages of Tacitus. In moments of such enthusiasm, I had but
to close my eyes and recite the sonorous lines, and at once before me
rushed the awful pageant of the returning conqueror: his triumphal
car, the captured enemies of his country walking behind it, tile blare
of trumpets, the tramp of victorious legions, while the welkin ra1g
with the shouts of Roman thousands. I struggled with the patriots
of Thermopylae, I defended the bridge with Horatius, with Dentalus




GEFFRO Y'S TRIALS.


59


I bared my breast to traitors, I ran upon my sword in the despair of
Brutus.
" But when I read the bright annals of Geneva's better days, it was
as though I had breathed an intoxicating incense; and in the Reformation I found a vein of antique heroism. Calvin, Pascal, the Waldense, the Albigense, I wept over their sorrows and trials, was warmed
with their struggles, and glad in their triumphs. Not their religion,
but the exaltation of their patriotism excited me. How dull, then,
seemed the common-place life of our trading town, how mean its petty
economies; and how unworthy the destiny my parents had so fondly
imagined for me. The beautiful land and city which patriot reformers
had early saved from papal Rome, now seemed given up to the gods of
materialism and sold wholly to the commercial Satan. I was blinded
to the heroism of common life-the true greatness of the many who
daily toil and suffer for those they love.
"Before reaching my eighteenth year I fully determined to seek a
land where political systems were yet to be developed, and might be
modeled upon abstract equity. I would be a citizen of the Republic
of Humanity. But where was such a land to be found? The revolution of 1830 had only resulted in giving France another king; and
their so-called moderate monarchy I looked upon with abhorrence.
Like my classic models, I believed the very name of king incompatible
with freedom. England was still less tolerable. I associated it with
all that was hateful in titles and hereditary privileges. The New
World was the place to look for the Brotherhood of Man; for the very
air of Europe was poisoned with priestcraft, and its soil barren of high
resolve. The South American States were struggling toward an autonomy, but, with the subtle instinct of the Teutonic blood, I distrusted
the lofty professions of a Latin race. Their short-lived liberty demonstrated an inherent incapacity to respect the individual right, and
their young republic was only old despotism under new names and
forms. Republics, I was persuaded, could not coexist with priests; for
with their politics I had nearly rejected my people's religion.
" With the little sum I could gain by long pleading with my parents,
I sought this republic, persuaded that here, when one met a man, he
met a brother.
" Need I say that I was cruelly disappointed. Without nobility, there
was almost equal caste; and without old families, there was equal
tyranny in tthe new. Wealth and color made classes as widely divergent as rank and birth, and in the boasted land of liberty, one-tenth
of the whole population were bondsmen. The republic was ruled by




60


WESTERN WILDS.


an oligarchy of slaveholders, and along the same paths trod by Washington, black men were chased by republicans, or torn by blood-hounds,
for the crime of seeking freedom, in sight of the very school-houses
where boys declaimed in praise of William Tell. I visited the various
communes, where a few enthusiastic spirits had sought to establish the
Human Brotherhood on a basis of perfect equality. At New Harmony
I found the short-lived experiment already a failure. Communia was
even less satisfactory. The religious communes I found intolerable
from their plentiful lack of common sense; and in the others observed
a grossness of conception that raised in my mind a wonder, not that
they failed, but that they should ever have been established. I turned
my steps toward Nauvoo, then rising into prominence as the last and
greatest attempt to establish a religious brotherhood. But there I
found all the evils of the old systems, with few of their corresponding
benefits: priestcraft without its paternal care, greed without a thought
of future reckoning insuring the defeat of its own aims, and a fanaticism which scorned the commonest suggestions of prudence. That
such a community would soon or late come into conflict with the
neighboring Americans, was certain.
"From Nauvoo, in the early months of 1842, I visited St. Louis,
meeting there an agent of the American Fur Company, with whom I
took employment. I was nearly cured of my early dreams, but still
hoped that a land might be found where humanity would have a fairer
chance, and rank and wealth confer no greater power than morals and
intellect. I sought the Western Wilds to commune with nature in her
unbroken solitudes, convinced that there, at least, the few residents were
as brothers. But humanity's weakness is common alike to the city and
the desert. On the vast plains, and amid the majestic mountains, wherever
man meets man, the struggle goes on even more fiercely, though not
more earnestly, than beneath the smooth surface of urban society.
Every-where the strong and ambitious are struggling to the front, the
weak and unskillful falling to the rear. Under the pressure of common danger or common want, the pioneers do indeed become as
brothers, for the safety of each is the good of all; but the danger
passed or the want supplied, egotism asserts itself even more fiercely
for its temporary repression. Even as you have seen the unhurt buffaloes gore a wounded mate to death, lest its struggles and bellowings
attract the beast of prey, so the rushing crowd can not pause, lest he
who is up to-day go down to-morrow.
"February, 1843, found me at Fort Lancaster on the Platte, without
any particular aim. There I met Colonel Warfield, in the service of




GEFFRO Y'S TRIALS.


61


the young republic of Texas, bearing a commission adorned with the
bold signature of Sam Houston, President. I was then twenty-two
years of age, and seriously debating with myself whether I should not
gladden the hearts of my parents by a return to the sober life of
Geneva. A few years had done wonders for me. Practical life had
taught me to dream no more of the Brotherhood of Man; that liberty
and progress are to be secured by no cunningly devised schemes, but
earned by slow and toilsome steps of the individual, and that
priestcraft and despotism can not be argued out, but must be suffered
out. But I saw more clearly that a free republic, with all its faults, is
still the best attainable government, and a brief acquaintance with
Colonel Warfield revived much of my old enthusiasm. ' The Texans
had freed themselves from the tyrannous domination of another race,
and were struggling toward a more perfect liberty, and instinctively I
sympathized with them. With heightened color and eye glowing with
patriotic ardor, Colonel Warfield recounted the undying glories of the
Alamo, where Crockett, Travis and their brave companions died fighting to the last; of Goliad, Corpus Christi and San Jacinto. It was
to me the classic age restored. Heroes walked the earth again. There
were giants in that land and in those days. But when he unfolded the
bullet-riddled flag that had waved over Corpus Christi, and told of
the brave men who there died beneath its folds, I was filled with zeal
to emulate their heroism.
" When he called for volunteers, a start only was needed, and, following my example, a dozen men promptly enrolled their names. We
were to be part of a volunteer company of riflemen, the remainder to
join us at the rendezvous just beyond the Arkansas, on the Rio de las
Animas, in what was then Mexican territory. We were to act as
a corps of observation to assist the main army, then on its way from
Texas, and were enlisted for nine months, each man to furnish his own
horse, gun, and accoutrements. The others accompanied Colonel
Warfield at once, but settlement with the company detained "me ten
days, and I set out alone on the 9th of March. A snow-storm had
raged for a week, and, with a great deal of suffering, I made my way
alone to the mouth of the Fontaine Que Bouille, and thence, with a
single companion, to the rendezvous. Disappointment awaited me.
The expected detachment from the States had not arrived, and our
whole force numbered but twenty-four men-adventurers, apparently,
from every clime under heaven, and well supplied as to arms and
horses. They were uniformed in dazzling variety, but in one respect
harmoniously-a uniform of furs, blankets, and rags!




62


WESTERN WILDS.


"If I was amazed at the appearance of these patriots, how much
more was I confounded by their language! Can I record their conversation, their absurd views of political morality, their desires, their
hopes! A few were, I trust, like myself, acting from pure love of
liberty, a few for the good of the republic, more from a hope of gain,
and most from the pure abandon of Western character. But from the
eyes of all gleamed a good nature that gave hope of social comfort and
safety among them, while the cheerful frankness with which they spoke
of their past indicated too plainly that a few of them felt more comfortable




TO THE RENDEZVOUS.


beyond the reach of legal process. One young man, whose conversation showed some culture, evinced great anxiety to form a junction
with the main army, and penetrate at once into the Mexican settlements-and no wonder. I afterwards learned that he had left St.
Louis impromptu, somewhat in arrears in his accounts with a bank in
which he had been employed. His most intimate companion was
equally eager for an early advance. The friends of a lady in Ohio, he
frankly stated, had given him a great deal of trouble-all uncalled for,




GEFFRO YS TRIALS.


63


he insisted; but the laws of that Puritanic commonwealth were odious and tyrannical upon social subjects. He was an ardent advocate
of individual liberty. Another avowed himself weary of a life of
hardships on the mountains and plains; he was going down into
Mexico for a little rest.  His right-hand neighbor had left the
States because he was tired of a humdrum life; he wanted a change.
One went for variety, another to find a location; all seemed to think
the expedition a brief holiday, which was to end in victory and abundance. They had our future course fully settled: we should travel
leisurely across prairies rich in grass, thread cations alive with game,
and effect a junction with the Texan Invincibles, a thousand strong;
then march on the settlements, encounter perhaps some thousands of
Mexican soldiers, scatter them like the wind, dictate terms to Old Armijo,
in Santa Fe, make an advantageous peace, and settle down in the mild
climate and on the fertile soil of the Rio Grande to a life of dreamful
ease. There was much talk of dark-eyed senoritas, dowered with vast
ranches, where the contented owner would ride amid his thousands of
sheep and cattle, pluck the luscious grape, and drink from great casks
of red wine. This was their romance; the reality is to come.
"After brief consultation, a division of forces was agreed upon.
Fourteen men, including the Colonel, were to go down to the ' Crossing' (where the Santa Fe trail crossed the Arkansas), and await the
main body of riflemen from the States, or obey any orders from the
Texan force, while the remainder, among them myself, were to proceed
to the point where the Taos trail crossed the Las Animas, and act as a
scouting party until further orders. We set out on the 21st of March,
under command of a lieutenant, a gallant and graceful polyglot, who
gave command in three languages, and joked and swore in a dozen
more with inspiring fluency.  That day we marched up the Timpas,
then turned south south-west, toward the Las Animas. Having started
with but one day's supply of provisions, and that of dried buffalo meat,
we soon suffered for food. Our dependence was upon game, but at
that season there is little grass, and animals are poor and shy.  Two
days and three nights did we toil over the high and barren lands without food, and only supplied with water from the pools filled by melting
snow. Our horses were so exhausted that we walked most of the time,
chewing only the cud of bitter fancies. Already the bright visions
with which we set out were dissipated, and an awful sense of impending calamity seemed to weigh down the spirits of every one. The
third day we killed a straggling wolf, which furnished us a miserable
meal-just enough to excite a ravenous desire for something better.




64


WESTERN WILDS.


Three days more we fasted, and came, completely exhausted, upon an
old Indian camp, where we found some green buffalo hides, which the
wolves had abandoned. These we scraped and boiled till we had a
pasty mixture resembling glue thickened with scraps of leather, upon
which we made a hearty meal. Again we fasted two days, and at
last, faint from starvation, descended into the valley of Las Animas.
' The green growth here and there greatly restored our horses, and,
despite the warning of the more experienced, some of the men ventured
to eat the cactus bulb, insisting that its rank properties might be eradicated by roasting it in hot sand and ashes, in the same manner as the
California Indians neutralize the virus of various roots. The first who
partook felt no immediate effects, and praised it highly, upon which we
all ate greedily, drinking freely at the same time of the slightly mineralized water of the Las Animas. But two hours' time showed that the
inherent properties of the cactus were but slightly neutralized, if at all.
Strange tremblings shook our frames, succeeded by dizziness and a desire to vomit. These were followed soon by agonizing pains, in which
the sufferers rolled upon the ground in fearful contortions, and uttering
heart-rending cries. It was a night of unmitigated misery. All recovered, but so weak that only three of the party were able to move about.
It was simply impossible to proceed, or even hunt for game. Accordingly lots were cast between the horses, and the one thus condemned
was slaughtered for food. On this we made a most delicious meal, alternately resting and eating at frequent intervals all day. Late at
night we were so far restored that we feasted with glad hearts, and
again the camp resounded with jokes, songs, and laughter. All were
clamorous to advance at once on the Mexican settlements. Daily I
saw more and more that mountaineers are much like children-unduly
confident when all goes well, and correspondingly gloomy under the
pressure of distress.  The equal mind, preserved in arduous toils and
fortune's sunshine, product of a higher mental cultivation, is not often
theirs; they are elated by good omens, and cast down by auguries of
ill; their plans are often disturbed by the suggestion of night-mare
dreams, and gloomy apprehensions seize them from the unseasonable
flights of birds or other strange outgivings of animal instinct.
"With restored strength, and some few days' supply of food, we traveled up stream, and were soon in the grand cafion of the Rio de las Animas, as it is called by the Catholic Spaniards. This strange river,
with such extremes of delightful valley, barren waste, or gloomy and
forbidding cafion, has received corresponding names from all races.
The Indians call it the Wild River, the French christened it Piquer




GEFFRO Y'S TRIALS.


65


L'Eau, or water of suffering, but the pious Spaniards name it River of
Souls, which your unpoetic but practical race have shortened to Purgatory. We soon entered the grand canon where the stream cuts its
way through a high and barren table-land, running in a deep gorge, with
almost perpendicular sides. Sometimes these crowd
in upon the stream, and fallen rocks choke up its bed,  )
producing a series of beautiful cascades; again, the
cliffs recede, and leave a little oval valley, inclosed
by red and yellow walls, rich in grass and timber,!
and often abounding in game. At length we       k | L
reached a gorge too narrow and difficult for pass-  'i;
age, and were compelled to turn into a side gulch  ', A
and climb the almost perpendicular cliff, at least six
hundred feet in height. All day we toiled along a 1|
series of rocky offsets, again and again lifting our
horses over the rocks by means of ropes attached
to their bodies, and at night-fall camped upon the
high mesa. Thence we followed only the general
course of the Las- Animas until we arrived at our
destined post, which was in a large grove of cottonwoods just below where the Taos trail crosses
the stream. North and east were the sandy des-!
erts, southward the tierras templadas that skirt the
heads of the Cimarron and the Colorado tributary to CABON DE LAS ANIMISM
the Canadian; but westward a more fertile plat rose even to the foot of
the Huaquetories, which your people now call the Spanish Peaks. There
we kept close guard upon the trail, expecting to capture some of the
enemy's scouts, but beyond that and herding our stock, were free froin
care. Grass, game and pure water were abundant, and in a few days
every man felt equal to a hundred Mexicans. Again songs were heard,
and merriment reigned around the camp-fire; again did we hear of
that glorious future in Mexico. All the omens were propitious; the
restored mountaineers had good dreams, and the birds again flew in
unison with their brightest hopes.
" Doubts of my companions, which had slumbered in time of toil and
trouble, returned amid abundance, but were happily set at rest by a
circumstance that soon occurred. One day our guards hailed a small
party, who fled northward, but were captured after a sharp chase of several miles. They proved to be two Americans and an Englishman,
with two Mexican guides and servants, on their way from Santa Fe to
Fort Lancaster, and thence to the States. Having been successful
5




66


WESTERN WILDS.


traders, they were well equipped, and had with them a large quantity
of gold and silver; but, after hearing their account, our party released
them. It was evident then, that whatever our men might be, and however unworthy the motives of some, they were not marauders.
" From these travelers we received news that greatly disheartened us.
A European Spaniard, who had been in the Texan army of invasion
in 1842, and was then suspected of being a spy, had reported himself
for reenlistment, and been assigned to Colonel Warfield's command.
This action caused unusual confidence to be reposed in him, and after
gleaning all the information possible, he proceeded by the shortest
route to Santa Fe, and laid the whole case before the Mexican Governor, Armijo. But that worthy had received still more circumstantial
accounts of us from some resident American traders, who had agents
out upon the plains, and who were base enough to betray the cause of
liberty for such favors in the remission of tariff duties, and other commercial advantages, as a Mexican Governor at that time could extend.
" Soon after came a messenger from Colonel Warfield with orders to
join him at Rabbit Ears, a noted landmark midway between the
Cimarron and Arkansas. We had enough of the Las Animas, and our
lieutenant mapped out a new route, thus: south two and a half days to
the Cimarron, thence down it five days to the Santa Fe trail, and
thence north-west to Rabbit Ears. We entered at once upon the sandy
plain, which continued all the way to the Cimarron. Sometimes
cacti covered the sand so close that every step was dangerous, or thick
clusters of greasewood excluded all useful growth; and again naked
sterility denied footing to vegetable life. As we neared the Cimarron,
the region grew still more forbidding. Behind us was the desolate
table-land, before us the gloomy mountains; the few water holes were
poisonous with alkali or other mineral salts, and the men, half crazed
with thirst, declared with profane emphasis that such a country was
little worth fighting for. We descended through a side gorge into the
cation of the Cimarron, winding along a buffalo trail, and upon a rocky
bench barely wide enough for our animals. The walls of this fissure
were at least eight hundred feet high, and facing each other at a
distance not exceeding twenty-five yards. A large stone, loosened at
the begiannmg of our descent, shot downward with the velocity of a
cannon-ball, while the echoes sounded from side to side in gloomy reverberations. Once down to the bottom of the cation, our route was
easy enough along the course of the stream; at times in an oval
vale, adorned by heavy groves and vocal with the songs of birds,
again in a narrow calion, and again out upon bare plats of burning sanil.




GEFFRO Y'S TRIALS.


67


But whether the few green plats were the beginning of mother nature's
mighty reform, to redeem the whole desert, or the last survivals in the
long struggle against increasing barrenness, we could not know. The
stream is large, and the water pure through this part of its course,
but as soon as we emerged upon the great plain, the Cimarron shrunk
to a mere rivulet, and in a little while vanished entirely. Thence for
hundreds of miles, it is said, scarcely a shrub or spear of grass adorns
its banks. The high plains between the Cimarron and Arkansas we
found even more desolate. There only the transient showers and melting snows of spring produce, in the most favored spots, a faint tinge of green. Then a  \ —, ' 5  t  y/
few pearly drops spatter crag and peak, or  i  I
linger on the plain as though desolation half A
relented the work she had to do, or mother
nature sorrowed for her short-lived offspring;  i
but soon all this is passed, and summer with
scorching days and dewless nights hastens to
ravish the evanescent beauties of spring and  ii
turn her green to stubble.
"Reaching the Santa Fe trail, we met a
friendly party of Arapahoes, who told us that
four hundred Mexican cavalry had gone            -     v
north in search of us only two days before. GETTING DOWN TO THE CIM1 *   1  *. 1AREON.
As this was confirmed by evidences on
the trail, we strained every. nerve to get across the desert and effect
a junction with the rest of the force. The season was already well
advanced, and, to avoid heat and thirst, we traveled as far as possible
that night. During the entire distance of some forty miles we found
no water, and till late the next afternoon men and horses suffered the
agonies of thirst. The animals finally became almost unmanageable,
and our principal pack-horse stampeded, carrying off considerable
ammunition, and could not be recovered. Coming up to the rendezvous, what was our disappointment to find, not the expected detachment from the States, but the handful we had left a few weeks before
on the Arkansas. Discouragement and discontent now threatened
open mutiny. The season was late, and the hottest weather approaching; the water-holes were fast drying up, the Mexicans fully apprised
of our plans, and the whole country on our line of advance scoured
by their cavalry. Colonel Warfield hurriedly set forth the situation;
then, with one of his nervous magnetic appeals, urged us to strike at
least one blow before retiring. By unanimous vote a new plan was




68


WESTERN WILDS.


agreed upon. It would never do for us to return the way we had
come, as every water-hole was guarded, and an ambush set in every
mountain pass. We must strike one blow, and then, if the Texan
army never came, reach the Arkansas by a less frequented course.
" It was decided to go westward up the arroyo we were on, and then
straight south to the Cimarron again. The two days we followed the
arroyo, grass wag abundant, and water enough found in the limestone
"pockets," which appear occasionally along these cafions. Thence
southward we pressed with all possible speed day and night over the
barren mesa, and when men and horses were frantic with thirst, again
arrived at the Cimarron. There we cached our surplus baggage, and
thence made another forced march across the rocky table-lands, and
over a spur of the Taos Mountains, toward the nearest Mexican settlements. Halting in a green depression of the divide between the
waters flowing east and those of the Rio Grande, our scouts reported a
body of sixty Mexican cavalry in a fortified camp just ahead, and commanding the only pass to the settlements. Further scouting discovered a point from which our whole force might overlook their
camp. This point we gained by a circuitous route next day, and
camped in a dense thicket of cedars and pines. Below was a considerable valley, through which ran a small stream bordered by cottonwood and willow; in a dense grove of the former, and on the farther
bank of the stream, was the Mexican camp, beyond it a narrow pass
leading to a small town. It was agreed that we should effect a surprise just beyond daylight next morning, capture the force if possible,
then make a dash into the town and retreat before they could raise a
force sufficient to oppose us.
"Soon after midnight we cautiously descended by a detour of some
five miles, which brought us down into the cottonwood thicket nearest
the enemy's camp. Thence we moved on slowly to the bank of the
stream, but were disconcerted to find it three times as large as it had
appeared from the hill. After a whispered consultation, it was decided that the enemy's guards were upon the opposite bank and might
be surprised and disarmed. With this view we waded the almost icecold stream so noiselessly that we were ascending the opposite bank
when the first sentinel hailed:
"' Quienes veniren 2' (Who comes?)
"'Que dijo ' (What do you say?)
'. 'Quienes veniren! Caraho!' was his response, as he discharged his
piece at the nearest man, and fled into camp. We followed close, and
were upon the soldiers as they rose from sleep.




GEFFRO YS TRIALS.


69


"'Munchos Tejanos!' (Many Texans!) yelled the other sentinels,
as our men rushed upon and disarmed them.
"'Si, si, munchos Tejanos-quieron los scoupetas!' was the cry, as
we sprang to prevent them. The five men named for that duty had
secured most of the arms, but a short, sharp struggle ensued, in which
five of the Mexicans were killed and as many wounded. But the surprise was so complete that most of them fled precipitately toward the
pass. It was impossible to secure our prisoners and the captured
arms, and collect our horses in time to make the intended attack upon
the village before they could have been fully aroused and prepared.
We therefore hastily collected the arms and horses of the fugitives,
paroled the prisoners, destroyed every thing we could not carry off,
and pushed with all speed for the spur by which we might reach the
table-lands to the eastward. Reaching, late in the afternoon, a high
point in the eastward pass, we thought ourselves beyond pursuit, and
halted for a rest. In the general gayety, discipline was relaxed, and
the guards stationed with the horses ventured to leave their posts for a
few moments and enter camp. In the midst of our meal the shout was
heard: 'There go our horses!' and all hands sprang up only to witness
our noble cavallard under full headway before a body of Mexican
horsemen, while at the same instant a brisk fire was opened upon us
from flank and rear. For an instant we were paralyzed; then seized
our arms, and, at the word of command, charged upon the enemy on the
hill in front. The panic-stricken Mexicans rushed down the opposite
slope, leaving three dead upon the ground; we followed, and soon
cleared the field in all directions, till not an enemy was in sight.
One of the Mexicans had been holding two mustangs in the rear of
the attacking party, and though shot dead, still held the halters tight
gripped in his hands. Hurriedly cutting them loose, the St. Louis
man and I sprang upon the animals, and, despite the warning cry from
Colonel Warfield, dashed after the cavallard, now on the brow of the
plateau, two or three miles away, and going at full speed.
" It was madness, but we had little time to think. It was death, we
considered, to lose our horses in such a place, and to die in an attempt
to regain them could not be worse. A gallop of a few miles, without
gaining on the cavallard, gave us time to reconsider, and we turned regretfully toward the camp. But as we did so, a party of at least fifty
Mexican horsemen appeared on the way we had come. A wild yell of
triumph rose upon the air, followed by a shower of scoupeta balls, one
of which laid my companion's horse dead, leaving its rider senseless
upon the ground. One instant I thought of surrender as a prisoner of




70


WESTERN WILDS.


war. But quickly came the thought that, in the heated condition of
the enemy, certain death awaited me; or, if not that, a lingering death
in a Spanish dungeon. I was nerved by desperation, and dashed down
a long slope to the right.
"From every hollow, from behind every sandy hillock, horsemen
seemed to rise, and still I cleared them all. The mustang was comparatively fresh, and, by frequent doubling and turning, I gained the advance on a long slope, which led westward to the plain. A hundred
Mexican cavalry were strung out behind me, the nearest just out of
range. Slowly I gained upon them, plying the spur savagely, and was
just beginning to breathe more freely, when suddenly there yawned
before me an arroyo with perpendicular sides, not more than twenty
feet wide, but of unknown depth. I reined my mustang back upon
his haunches at the very edge of the chasm, then turned to look my
last upon the earth. How fair then seemed the desert, but a little
while ago so wild and waste-how bright the sun-how majestic the
snowy mountains, glowing far to the north through the calm air!
"A yell of triumph from the enemy came with sudden jar upon my
ears, and close after it a shower of scoupeta balls; one cut my coatsleeve, while another plowed a furrow along my cheek. The sharp
sting of pain, the flow of warm blood, the insulting yell, maddened me.
I would not die-would not consent to their triumph; or, if die I must,
I would sell my life dearly. I turned and galloped fiercely. towards the
foe, discharging my pistol as I advanced. In sheer astonishment at my
desperation, they drew up. Again animal fear reasserted itself-the
mad instinct for one moment more of life-and I turned towards the
chasm. Again the fierce, insulting yell of the mongrel cut-throatsagain a shower of scoupeta balls. And now the enemy were near
enough for me to hear their insulting laugh-their discussion in bastard
Spanish of the best method to finish me without danger. They came
on more and more slowly. Again a few scoupeta balls whistled around
me, and I felt the sting of another slight wound.
" Could my mustang leap the chasm?   These mountain-trained
beasts were active; he was young and strong; at the worst it was but
death-death sudden and bravely dared. Thus swifter than lightning
ran my thoughts in the awful presence of the unknown.      I
" Putting him at full speed, I spurred him to the very edge, then,
rising in my stirrups, loosed the reins as he bravely took the leap. I
hear, as if it were but yesterday, the loud yell from the astonished
Mexicans; I see again the frightful gorge-in awful dreams again I
urge him to the fearful leap.




GEFFRO Y'S TRIALS.


71


" With a tremendous bound he cleared the chasm, landing with his
fore feet on the opposite side. For one brief instant the life of horse
and man trembled in the balance. Hope, despair, jdy, resignationhow rapidly I felt them all, but only for an instant. With deadly rebound, I felt myself thrown violently downward, and against the opposite side. Pure sunlight changed to fiery red, and again to dazzling


FOR LIFE OR DEATH.
gray; my mother's sad, sweet face looked down an instant from the
narrowed sky; streams of fire darted from the firmament, and after
them came darkness blacker than tongue can tell. Blow after blow
was rained upon my head; my flesh was cut as with sharp knives. I
was an age in falling, and yet all was over in an instant. Consciousness yielded, and I sank down, down, down into darkness, oblivion!
Was it death?




CHAPTER V.


DOLORES.
" WAS I in the land of spirits? Had the awful River of Souls indeed swallowed me up? Dense darkness, blackness that could be felt,
was around me. Every faculty was suspended, except simple consciousness; of past or future I had no conception-I only knew that I
was. It must be that I had passed from earth, and this was the region
into which philosophy had never penetrated.
" There was a slight rustle near me, and, exerting all my force of
will, I attempted to move; there shot through me such a pang of agony
that I screamed aloud.
" 'Ah, povritta!' said a soft, musical voice, and delicate fingers
touched my forehead, and then were pressed upon my lips. I dimly
comprehended that I was to remain silent and still; but my pain
was too great, and I groaned again and again. I now perceived that
my left arm and leg were tightly bandaged, and held in rude wooden
frames; my head also was covered with some tenacious strips. I was
helpless as a mummy. The gloom seemed to soften; a ray of light appeared here and there, and a distant tinkling was heard, like the sound
of sheep bells. A cup was pressed to my lips; I drank of a bitter decoction, and soon sank into a profound sleep.
"When I awoke, comparatively free from pain, there was light
enough to show that I was lying on a couch in a small room, in which
some one was moving about. The blanket which served for a door
was put aside, admitting the bright rays of the morning sun, and the
same soft voice spoke in Spanish.
"'Are they out of sight, Gomez?'
" Beyond El Sentinel, senorita,' was the reply.
" 'And gone?'
" To join the main body, maestra mia; they will never look here.'
" I understood barely enough of the language to know that this implied safety. The curtain was slowly drawn aside, and the speakers
departed. For hours I sought in vain to take up the tangled thread
of my existence.  Geneva was clear in my mind, and I fancied myself
in some cave in the hills of Switzerland. I thought, and thought, and
(72)




DOLORES.


73


thought again, ' Much wondering what I was, whence hither brought,
and how.' Beyond my school days I could not get the clew. Again
I slept, and awaking memory brought back my journey to the States,
the Texan expedition, and-all at once I was again at the rendezvous;
again I rushed madly on the chasm, again I dared the awful leap,
and, with a shriek, relapsed into insensibility.
"I was dimly conscious of two persons about my bed, both men;
but men of a garb and color I had seen only in dreams. The one
who seemed to have most authority again pressed the bitter draught to
my lips, and I sank into a long refreshing sleep. When I awoke it
was midday, and I saw that I was in a room half cave, half cabin,
such as the Mexican herdsmen build far up the mountains. On the
wall were pictures of the Virgin and some saints, at the foot of the bed
a crucifix, while a few adornments of some elegance were scattered
about. It was evidently the abode of rude herdsmen, hastily refitted
by a woman. All this I saw in a few seconds of half-waking consciousness. But only for an instant. As I moved, some one came
forward holding a cup, and at
sight of her, the red blood rushed
over my enfeebled frame. She      ^..         _   O
spoke. Away flew all my dreams
of Texan independence, away my  ii
heroic plans for the Brotherhood
of Man, away my cultivated
hatred of all the Spanish race;
any life was worthless that did
not include her. In this there was
no cold reasoning; there was no
thought that it was best, or why
it was best; it came as the hot SOME ONE CAME FORWARDHOLDING A CUP."
winds come from the desert, upon the green oasis.
"'The Virgin be praised, he speaks and lives!'
"' But where am I?'
"'Safe.'
"'But my friends, my companions in arms?'
"'They are gone to their own country; but never mind. Rest and
sleep.'
"I need not recount the progress of our attachment. Her home
was at a hacienda, some miles down the valley-one of the outposts.
Her parents were rich only in flocks and herds; their servants, peons
and Pueblo Indians. As the custom of these herders is to move higher




74


WESTERN WILDS.


up the mountains with the advance of the season, they were in this
hut at the time of our approach. It appeared that the rebound of my
horse from the opposite bank had hurled me back into the bushes
growing out from the side of the gorge some twenty feet down; and
thence by a succession of falls among the shrubby growth, I had
reached the bottom sixty feet below, fearfully bruised and broken, but
not mortally hurt. The Mexicans saw no way of descending except
by making a long circuit,
' ordinate                     and seeing my    horse
and bandage my broken limbs, and at the end of ten days I slowly
tstcrushed                      to jelly at the botbe my fate? Perhaps to be honorably  tom, they  concluded I
h  was dead  under h im.
hered lke a wid be.                   Fortunately I was found
by the  Pueblo Gomez,......time,                          an brought to the cabin.
Hmo t of cy                    ad a Mexican found
ThHad word gone to the
e t h                           hacienda, the command
"THE MEXICANS SAW NO WAY OF DESCENDING."  would have been prompt:
'Give him  up!"  But she saw me first, and womanly pity subordinated all other thoughts to that of saving me. In secret the
medicine man of the nearest pueblo was brought to dress my wounds
and bandage my broken limbs, and at the end of ten days I slowly
struggled back to life and consciousness. Still the Mexican authorities were ignorant of my existence. Should they learn it, what would
be my fate? Perhaps to be honorably treated as a prisoner of war,
perhaps to be murdered at sight. It would depend entirely on the
first officer who took charge of me. So many are the castes among
these people, and so great the difference between different clans, that
with one the prisoner is treated as a guest, while by another he is
butchered like a wild beast. But I /was for the present safe, and in
time took up the clew of my past life, and followed it down to the last
moment of consciousness-slowly, painfully, as the wounded hunter
drags his bleeding limbs towards home, with many halts and stumblings.
The old life was gone; the new life had grown up with Dolores, for
such, she told me, was her name. I seemed to have nothing I did not
owe to her, and for the present it was enough to live and love. She
taught me her language more perfectly, though we scarcely needed it;
and the days of convalescence passed as a brief dream.
"At length I was able to leave the cabin, and, leaning upon the arm




DOLORES.


75


of Dolores, walked to a projecting rock, which commanded a view of
the Mora pass. Then my past life seemed renewed, as familiar
thoughts were excited by the scenery. But Dolores was now my
arbiter. Of her people I knew little; forher religion I cared nothing.
It was hers, therefore it could not be bad. Doubtless it was true as
any other. I smiled at the Protestant prejudices of my youth; I gazed
into the radiant eyes of Dolores, and thought the old world mad that
all its religious differences had not yielded to the potent solvent of love.
Our love came unbidden. We thought not of the morrow; we made
no declarations; we simply understood each other. But as we sat upon
the rocky point, sometimes exchanging a word, but oftener in silent
bliss, we saw a moving cloud of dust rise from the pass far below,
and had just time to gain a point secluded from observation when a
cavalcade' came into full view. Imagine my horror when I saw my
old companions, and with them fifty more Americans, toiling wearily
through the dust and heat, bound elbow to elbow, and urged on by the
mounted Mexicans, who laughed and jeered at the captives. I was
mad with rage, but what could one do against so many? With tearful
eyes I watched them out of sight beyond the rock El Sentinel, then
turned with a fierce determination to hasten northward and bring
relief. Dolores met me with a smile, tinged with a shade of sadness.
It was enough. I easily found excuse for inaction. Again was the republic forgotten, again the eternal rights of man seemed of minor importance. I was happy here. What need of dwelling on the past? Why
take such heavy thoughts for the future? Love is a radically selfish
passion. Waking, I counted the moments till she should return; sleeping, her image glided through my dreams. By day she smiled upon
me in the landscape; by night she beamed upon me from the starry
skies.
" The summer was now far advanced; hot days were followed by dewless nights, and the grass was dried upon the ground. A new danger
confronted us. Dolores only made her daily visit from the hacienda
to the cabin at constant risk of attracting attention to my hiding-place;
she now announced with sobs that the season had come when the
Pueblos must remove the herds. Her father would return from the
capital; if I remained at the cabin, it must be at daily and hourly
risk. Her father was a caballero, she said, brave and generous; but
he was above all a Mexican. Duty and inclination alike would lead
him to surrender me. His servants were doubtful. The few Pueblos
she could trust; the peons never.
" It was a rude awakening. All that calm afternoon we discussed




76


WESTERN WILDS.


our situation, at one moment mingling our tears, the next elate with
firm determination. A score of plans I proposed were in turn rejected. To regain American territory was simply impossible. The
irregular war with the Texans continued, and the country between us
and the Arkansas was swarming with scouts. Every point was
guarded. Starvation was possible, capture certain, death probable.
My late companions were now languishing in Mexican dungeons;
those who lived to return home would probably do so with broken
health. Death would certainly overtake many of them  in prison.
From such a fate she prayed the Virgin to deliver me. Hour after
hour passed; I would do or dare aught for her; but to fly now was
to lose her forever. At last she spoke:
"' Gomez is our hope. Hie is not a peon, but a free Pueblo. Many
years absent from his town, he is bound to no cacique. Far to the
west are other Pueblos who owe no duty to the Mexican Republic;
but between them and ours there is a friendship. Once they had a
common ruler, and long kept the sacred fires burning for him. Gomez
will guide you to that people. In any of those pueblos you are
safe. Stay till there is peace with the Tejanos; then return, and.' Her light smile changed to a deep blush.
"' May the Virgin bless and protect you! Every night I shall look
upon the star that rises earliest above the peak where I first saw your
face. In one year I feel that you will return-one year. Oh,
Santa Maria, is it eternity?'
"No, to the young and ardent it is long; but it will pass at
last.'
"'Now, go to rest; and as soon as Gomez can supply his place
among the vacqueros, enter upon the journey.   To him   can I
intrust my chief treasure.'
" Three nights after, as I lay asleep, Gomez touched me, and said
in Spanish: 'The senorita waits; we start in an hour.' Down the
sharp cafion, and out upon the western plain we found the animals
tied ready for us, and in a little grove of algodones beyond the
hacienda I met Dolores. Need I recount our parting. It was a
short, delicious agony.  I held her to my heart as we exchanged
vows of eternal constancy; then, pressing kiss after kiss upon her
lips, I hurried away-for I knew not what-in my ear her parting
words, ' May all the saints watch over my love.'
"Hastily crossing the narrow valley and ascending the slope west
of it, at daylight we reached the first pueblo, the nominal home
of Gomez, who maintained semi-allegiance to its cacique and fiscal;




DOLORES.


77


and in its shaded recesses we remained for the day. The chief men
conversed readily in Spanish; but, among themselves, they spoke a
language of which I could not catch a syllable. Nor is it known to
the Mexicans, even to the interpreters who speak the tongues of all
the wild tribes. They conduct all their trades in Spanish, and exclude Mexicans as much as possible from their towns.  There is
evidence that these people were once far more numerous than now,
as the country was far more fertile.  Conquered by the Spaniards
nearly three centuries since, they revolted and with desperate bravery
expelled or exterminated their conquerors. But, in 1690, a new and
more powerful Spanish army reconquered the province; the Quiros,
Tagnos, and kindred tribes submitted sullenly to the Spanish yoke,
but the more warlike retreated to the defensible valleys and walled
basins of the Sierra Madre Range, and maintained a fierce independence. It was to those we were bound. Those near the Rio
Grande, compelled to give up their Montezumas religion and become
nominal Catholics, still held to many features of their ancient faith,
and long cherished plans of revolution and vengeance.  But time,
which reconciles us to all things, had now led them to acquiesce in
the political control of the Spanish race, though they tenaciously
resisted all social intercourse, and maintained their own line of
priesthood and a distinct language.
"By the advice of Gomez, I here stained my face, hands, and arms
with a pigment, which gave them color like that of the Pueblos;
and the next night we crossed the Rio Grande, as it was well for us
to avoid observation till we left that neighborhood. After another
halt at Jemez, near the wonderful Hot Springs, we hastened on to
Dead Man's Canon and crossed into the land of the Navajoes. These
Indians hung upon the slopes of the Sierra Madre, a living threat
to the Mexican settlements.  They waged a war, never intermitted
for two hundred years after their fierce ancestors were driven from
the fertile valleys and forced to find subsistence and refuge amid the
secluded carions and on the storm-swept mesas of the mountains. Ingenious, brave, and haughty, they called the Mexicans 'their herders,'
and robbing without quite ruining the dwellers in the valley, they
took tribute alternately from different settlements, leaving time between raids for the sufferers to renew their stock and gather wealth
for future forays. But now a precarious peace existed, and each
Mexican hamlet secured protection by purchasing the friendship of
some Navajo chieftain.
"For the first two days of travel, I hung upon the neck of my




78


WESTERN WILDS.


little burro, weak in body and sad at recent parting; but soon
fresh air and exercise, withi change of scene, brought new life,
and I felt a strange interest in the people we encountered.  We
passed hot deserts, glistening with sand and alkali; broad plateaus
of bare sandstone, and occasionally green dells or wooded coves,
where the natural beauty, by contrast with surrounding barrenness,
awakened emotions of keen delight. Sometimes we jogged on for
hours over a bare flat, then from the rocky rim walling an ancient
basin descended to the beds of lakes long since dry, to find in the
center and lowest depressions rich natural meadows or sullen pools,
bordered by a few sickly cottonwoods. We traversed wild gorges,
where from every side red precipices frowned upon yellow sands;
we crossed sandy wastes where glittered quartz-crystals, garnets,
and flakes of mica, and saw upon the scarred peaks the awfill evidences of a thousand cosmic convulsions. We passed amid bands
of savage men, who grew gentle at our approach, after a few words
or signs from Gomez; and traveled for days along a valley strewn
with the ruins of abandoned towns. Again we turned to the hills,
crossed the lowest divide of the Sierra Madre, and traveled on
over sterile flats and treeless, grassless mnesas.  It seemed a land
accursed of God and forgotten of civilized men, where only hunters and herdsmen could wring a scant subsistence from unwilling
nature; a land which even the all-grasping Spaniard did not covet,
but left as a refuge for those who could not give him gold for blood,
and would not yield the sweat of unpaid toil for his religion.
a Beyond the last range of the Sierra Madre we descended to the
canion of the Colorado Chiquito, rose again to the Mesa Calabasa,
and again cautiously threaded a defile down to an oval basinl some
thirty miles in width, dotted with little oases rich in native grasses.
In the center of this vale Gomez pointed out the goal of our hopes.
A sharp mesa rose abruptly from the plain, and on its summit were
the Moqui towns. A few friendly Navajoes had accompanied us,
for there was a temporary peace between them    and their fierce
neighbors, the Apaches. Rushing down the rocky paths with wild
cries, the Moquis came to the foot of the mesa in disorder and
apparent anger at our approach; but a few words from Gomez reassured them, and I was conducted up the winding way by which
alone the place is accessible, and led into the presence of their
chief. He received me with civil dignity, assigned me a house,
for many were vacant, and in a few days I was as much at home
with these strange people as if I had been there for years. The




DOLORES.


79


Capitan, as their chief man was called, sought to cheer the hours,
as far as his simple pleasures and uneventful life could interest me,
and as I grew to understand the people, they were a strange study
to me. The government, if government it might be called, was a
pure paternalism; but repression was unnecessary, because crime could
scarcely be said to exist.
"At last, said I, the Brotherhood of Man is found.  Here is no
scheming of man to supplant his fellow; here all are equal, and
obedience to natural law, with mutual toleration, takes the place of
courts and statutes.  But I soon saw that in parting with most of
the faults of a progressive race, they had parted with many of its
virtues and all of its advantages. There was no envy, for there was
no emulation; the weak were not trodden down by the strong in a
struggle for place, for there was no struggle.  There was no caste,
for there was neither rank nor wealth; a dead level of social mediocrity took the place of our many distinctions in birth or condition.
They had not the petty vices of a trading people, as they had little intercourse with the rest of mankind; nor the faults of a manufacturing
town, for every family was its own manufacturer.  Political strife
never disturbed them, for there was no choice as to the form of government, and no energy to change the ruler. The Capitan did not
rob his people, for they had nothing worth his taking; the people
did not envy their king, for he was poor as themselves.  Luxury
and its attendant vices they knew not-their land sufficed but for a
bare existence; and unchastity was so rare as to be looked upon as
a monstrous phenomenon.   But their chastity resulted from a lack
of aggressive energy, and a sexual coldness with which kind nature
ever blesses an illy nourished and decaying race. No military ambition disturbed the placid current of their lives; they scarcely knew
how to defend themselves against their savage neighbors, and retiring to these rock-defended fastnesses, had left the open country to
their foes.
"Then I saw that energy is evolved only in conflict; that a vigorous combat with evil develops the individual, and that a state from
which ambition should be banished to leave the citizen free from
conflict, would be a state in which moral vigor would in turn decay,
and social stagnation, as a living tomb, swallow up the proudest products of the march of mind. With these people one day passed as
another. Whether they had a belief in immortality I could never
learn; but they might well ignore it, since even in this world they
were dead already. Beyond the narrow horizon of their hills, they




80


8WESTTER V WILDS.


saw nothing; this basin was to them the world. Ambition had no
place in their dull emotions, and though central to a dozen warring
tribes, they were simple, civil and unwarlike.
" One year I abode with these people. It was rest; but for a lifetime-ah, that would be consignment to a living tomb! But Gomez
returned, and with a message from Dolores. There was peace at last;
the captive Tejanos had been released, and I might safely return.
The journey was a long reverie of delightful anticipation. The meeting I leave you to imagine. But all was not well; Colonel Warfield
and his brave companions had been released, and many Americans
were coming into Santa Fe; but the Mexican authorities felt that
peace was temporary, and armed parties still hovered along the frontier.  We scarcely seemed nearer the fruition of our hopes, and
months of weary waiting were yet before us. Her father-but I need
not tell you of Castilian pride. He was of the gente fina of New
Mexico, and, boasting of his saugre azul, an alliance with an unknown
foreigner would have seemed to him worse than her death. I urged
immediate flight; that we would seek the States, and there remain till
permanent peace should allow us to return and settle in Mexico, as I
hoped-after the manner of sanguine youth-we might soon do with the
wealth that I should earn. I abode at the adjacent pueblo, and as
often as possible saw and conferred with Dolores, never failing to
urge immediate flight. I need not recount the progress I made, if
you know aught of the female heart. She yielded, and in the midst
of all my distractions and uncertainties, I thought myself the happiest
of men. We were to set out the first opportunity. The distance was
great, and no guide to be had. In vain I sought for one in the
pueblo; the honest fellows shook their heads. In their own country,
among their own people, they were at my service, but not among los
Americanos, los diabolos Gringos! We could not retreat from our
project. Before a Pueblo priest we plighted our faith, and thus united
in life and death, set out upon our northward route. One Pueblo
accompanied us the first night and till noon the next day; then pointing out our safest route-along the higher part of the plateau to avoid
Mexican scouts-bade us farewell, and we were alone upon the tierra
templada.
"The route led to a water-hole, where we paused exhausted, and
remained till midnight. Thence we rose to a dim trail higher up the
rocky slope, and toiled on till late next afternoon, when fatigue and
fear for our animals again compelled us to stop. A long rest, and
then on to the next pool, which we reached late at night, and soon




DOLOBBS.


81


sank into a profound sleep. When we awoke late next morning, the
scene had changed. A dense mist, rare at that season, hung upon the
mountains, and heavy clouds drifted eastward over the plain. Nevertheless, I marked what I thought the right course, and we traveled
on. Before noon we were bewildered among the projecting ridges,
where the trail was obscured upon the rocky flats, and ere long
were completely lost.
" Should we descend to the lower plain for a shorter route, or turn
toward the mountains to be sure of grass and water? I determined
to continue a due north course as far as possible, trusting either to
come again upon the trail, or find water in some of the limestone
'pockets,' which occur here and there even in the red sand hills. By
noon the water in the canteens I had provided was nauseating, having
been almost stagnant when taken from the pool; before the next
morning it was all gone, while our animals gave unmistakable signs
of approaching exhaustion. Still we pressed on. It was now mid
August, and the hot, dry season was at its worst. The bunch-grass
was dried to a coppery hue, and though it nourished our animals, they
must have water also. The stinging plants and thorny cactus con —
stantly impeded our way, and we soon came to regard the broad flats
of bare rock as a glad relief. But water, water we must have. 1
was then too ignorant of wood-craft to know that in the Rockv
Mountains one hunts up-hill for water instead of down upon tbh
plain; and felt keenly my need of that sixth sense wherewith ths
Indian and plainsman can discern the locality of a brook or pool by
the appearance of surrounding hills or vegetation.
"' Night drew on. There was a
dead calm and oppressive air. The
animals at length refused to m ove
a step further, and I had barely time
to spring from my saddle and receive
her, when Dolores fainted in my
arms. For a moment my agony was
terrible-the agony at once of fear
and indecision. But in a moment      OLORES FAINTED IN XY ARMS."
fierce energy returned; I raised her, recalled her to consciousness, and
now leading, now carrying her, toiled up and over the rocks to the
mouth of a gorge that opened upon the side of a precipice a thousand
feet above. Why, I scarcely knew, but had a vague hope of protection
and rest in the defile. Night came on suddenly, and its coolness greatly
revived us. We had as yet suffered little with actual thirst, and when
6




82


WESTERN WILDS.


our first trouble was passed, sank to sleep- upon a sand-heap at the
base of an immense rock. Soon after midnight we awoke stiff with
cold, and now beginning to feel the sharper promptings of thirst, I
proposed to search for water down the canion, but on turning we saw
our animals, like us revived by the night air, slowly making their way
up the dry arroyo, as if they would seek relief near its head. Something in this manifestation of instinct decided me. The arroyo showed
plainly that at some seasons it contained a large stream; might there
not remain a little near its source?
" For hours we toiled on up the dry channel, soon leaving the aniimals
far behind; now stumbling over the immense stones which choked the
dry bed, and now searching every clump of grass that showed the
faintest tinge of green. The sun rose red and fiery, the air was filled
with light haze, and another sultry day began.  But with every
hour's advance new signs encouraged us: there were clumps of
dwarfish pines, and occasionally a shrub of other timber; the brass
in places had an unmistakably green tinge, and occasional tracks
showed that various small animals habitually made this passage. But
every moment our thirst increased. I glanced at Dolores; her eyes
gleamed with that unwholesome fire which is the precursor of delirium.
I felt my own head grow giddy; my eyes were so dry it seemed I
could feel the balls grate as they turned in their sockets; my tongue
was swollen, my lips cracked, and I spoke with difficulty. Hastily
seeking the shade of an immense rock, I broke some splinters from a
mountain pine; these, rolled about in the mouth, soon created a moisture, which sensibly relieved our sufferings, and again we toiled on.
" It was now noon. The hot sun glared upon the white sand and red
rocks, and our sufferings rapidly increased. Almost exhausted, I happened totturn my gaze down' the cation, and saw our animals far below,
still feebly struggling up the ascent. The sight gave me renewed hope,
and, with fierce energy, I rushed from side to side of the gorge, searching every spot that bore signs of the presence of moisture; but in vain.
An hour longer we toiled on, then Dolores suddenly reeled, and sank,
apparently lifeless, in my arms. With loud cries, I bore her hastily to
the shade of a projecting rock; I chafed her hands, and implored her
to look up and live. She revived, only to relapse into a half-dead
condition, scarcely sensible of my presence, but babbling in Spanish
of green fields and the cool brooks about her home. I pressed her to
my heart, and prayed that death might come at once and end our intolerable sufferings. An hour passed thus, then suddenly we seemed
to revive again-Dolores with alternate sobs and hysterical laughter,




DOLORES.


83


and I with renewed determination to push on. Soon we sank into
half-unconsciousness, and again revived as suddenly, but with all the
pangs of thirst and fatigue greater than before. Slowly this anguish
receded, and we sank into a condition of almost complete exemption
from suffering, to again revive as suddenly to fiercer pangs.
"But this time my vision seemed strangely cleared.  The agony
yielded to a dull pain, that left me power to think.  I saw all the
beauties of the landscape in a new light, and gazed on them with actual interest, while I pitied and blamed myself for such a feeling. I
saw a mountain bluebird flit rapidly over the gorge, and wondered
where he was flying and what for; then laughed loud and long at myself for such untimely curiosity. I noticed a hillock of the desert ants
near me, from which the red nation was pouring by hundreds, and a
sand-toad near them; then I remembered that these creatures avoid
damp spots, where water is liable to percolate, and again the wild
gorge rang with my fierce laughter at their strange habits. I saw a
lean coyote steal across the cafion below us, and wondered what he was
4 doing so far up in the hills, and why he had not remained on the
plains, as usual, and whether he was lost and hunting for water; then
the absurdity of this conceit struck me, and I made what I thought a
very witty jest at his leanness, and laughed at my own wit till the
cation rang again. Suddenly I came to myself, and stared around me;
then my gaze fell on Dolores, lying full length upon the sand, and
breathing heavily, and all my fierce energy returned.  I raised her
with unnatural strength, fairly bounded up the cailon several rods, and
laid her at the foot of another rock. Again and again I repeated this,
one moment kissing her lips and vowing to save her, the next laughing
at my temporary fits of strength. At last I laid her in a cool depression at the foot of a cliff, which seemed to have been split by some
convulsion, and, for a space, relapsed into insensibility.
"When I revived, the cool night had come again, and Dolores was
sitting by me, clasping my hand. Such was the reviving effect of the
night air, now sweeping down the caflon with a strong breeze, that we
were greatly refreshed, and, after a sad, sweet interchange of thought,
sank into a troubled sleep. Again we waked suddenly, almost at the
same moment, and again the pangs of thirst were upon us in all their
fury. Nature has still some mercy, even at her worst, and though a
man die in torture, for want of food or drink, she secures him intervals
of perfect rest from pain. But now our sufferings were at their worst.
Mere abstinence from water for two days would not have produced
such effects, but for our continued exertions. The cold night air pre



84


WESTERN WILDS.


vented delirium. I put out my hand to assure Dolores of my presence,
when-was it possible? Did I feel an actual moisture at the base of
the cliff, or was it only the cold, dry sand? Fiercely I scratched away
the first few inches of the loose surface-eagerly I thrust my fingers into
the packed dirt and gravel, and tore my nails digging beside the rock.
Yes, it was unmistakable; there was moisture there, and somewhere
above it there was water!
":New life animated me. I followed the line of moisture along the
base of the rock; it suddenly ceased, and my heart stood still. An instant more, and I perceived that I had passed the immense fissure which
split the cliff; in it I again found the moist trace. I followed it a few
rods, and perceived that the formation had changed to limestone. Joy
overcame me. I screamed aloud, and burst into tears.  Every yard
that I advanced up the fissure the earth grew more moist. Presently
I could squeeze a few dirty drops from a handful into my mouth.
Great Jupiter! Was Olympian nectar ever so sweet? A few rods
more and there was dank green grass, its matted roots sodden with mud
and water.  Eagerly I sucked the divine fluid, then tore up a few
handfuls and hastened with it to Dolores. Squeezing the scant drops
into her mouth, and spreading the grass roots upon her brow, I soon
had the exquisite joy of seeing her raise her head and smile. I took
her in my arms and bore her to the damp grass-plat; then, foot by foot,
on our knees, we searched the narrow ravine. Soon we came to where
a few tiny drops trickled over a mossy stone. With our lips pressed to
the rock, we drew new life from it. For an hour we alternately sucked
at this source, and cheered each other-she calling upon the Virgin, and
blessing all the saints by turns, I rejoicing at the happy operations of
nature which gave us water in this strange place.
" Our worst tortures past, fatigue again conquered us. We sank into
a sound sleep, and did not wake till the morning light fell upon our
faces. I then saw that the line of green grass continued up the narrow gorge, and, following it for two hours, we came upon a pool of
cold, clear water. Did you ever, after hours of toil across the desert,
come upon one of those lime-rock springs, which alone make life possible in the far South-west? If so, you know their wonderful beauty;
you can imagine our joy. Around were the yellow and striped mountains, seamed and scarred as if by a million years of storm and lightning; below, the cliff-walled canon, now filled with the hot and stagnant air of mid-day, and beyond it the dry sands and treeless desert.
Here was a cool spring, central to a little oasis, where the bright fluid
bubbled forth from the earth, and dripped o'er the rocks in tiny, cool




DOLORES.


85


rivulets-where rank, green grass hung over the brim of the pool, and
strange, bright flowers spoke of life, and love, and hope.
"A day's rest was imperative, and as soon as possible I filled my canteens and hastened back to find our horses. They had toiled on till
morning; then one had fallen exhausted, while the other had halted
in the shadow of a cliff, barely able to stand. A canteen full of water,
which he drank from my Mexican sombrero, greatly revived him, but
the other was past hope. I succeeded in getting the one to the mouth
of the gorge, and after a dozen trips for water, he was so far restored
as to graze upon the bunch-grass. Next morning we set out again,
now with but one horse, and late the next night, having found the
trail, reached the water-hole, which was to have been our stopping
place the day we were lost. There we again rested a day, which so
far restored the animal that he was able to carry Dolores and our
little stock of provisions, as fast as I could walk beside him. Again we
journeyed on, turning aside at night into a caflon, and keeping near the
base of the mountains by day. Once past the divide of the tierra templada and upon the slopes leading down to the Arkansas, water-holes
could be found three or four times every day. Our progress was now
encouragingly rapid, and in due time we turned the last point on the
mountain trail, and with a glad shout hailed the yellow Arkansas.
Another day, a n d we
should be on American        -    -.~~ ~
soil; the land would be                                  r
better watered, my gun       _     t
would supply us with        _           n_                a
game, and we might travel more leisurely.              __o D
"We turned eastward
and down to the plain,
tohe          "THE BALLS WHISTLED AROUND US."
to reach the main crossing on the Santa Fe trail, and late the next day, while our hearts beat
high with satisfaction, descended to the sandy border of the Arkansas. A shout was borne to our ears from the heights behind, and
turning, we saw a party of mounted Mexicans rapidly nearing us.
For an instant our hearts stood still with fear; the next I bounded
on the horse in firont of Dolores, and urged him fiercely forward.
I remembered with agony that I had no traders' permit from the
Spanish authorities, and could give no plausible explanation of my
condition; capture might mean death, it would certainly mean loss
of Dolores. Soon we were in the middle of the stream, at that


I




86


WESTERN WILDS.


season not too deep for fording; but our pursuers gained fast upon
us. As we neared the American shore they reached the opposite
i)ank, and with a yell of rage at being foiled, discharged a volley
from their scoupetas. The balls whistled around us; I only noted
that the animal did not fall, then spurred him on, and in another
moment he scrambled up to the northern bank, and we were safe
upon American soil.
"Safe! Oh, merciful powers, why had we not an hour more in the
start? Why had we come safely through such perils only to part
when our haven was won? Dolores' arm tightened about my waistshe did not speak. I turned with a glad smile, a word of love and
cheer upon my lips. She was deadly pale, and I had barely time to
dismount, when she fainted in my arms. A shot had entered her
side. * * * * * *
" But anguish was unavailing. There was no time for regrets. Cold
water, rest and shade were imperative. Clasping her in my arms, I
bounded up the rocks, and laid her by a little pool at the foot of the
cliff. I dashed the water upon her face and loosed her clothing.
She revived:
"'Holy Virgin, spare him, guide and protect him.'
"There was no word for herself. Then starting up fiercely:
"'The padre! The padre!. Bring the padre!' she exclaimed.
Then recollecting: 'No, it is too late! too late!'
" My agony was terrible. I wrung her hands, and implored her to
live. My wife, my dear wife, with whom I had shared so many perils,
who had saved my life; must she lose her own by following me? must
she die here when we were beyond danger?
" She soon revived and gave me hope. For a few moments we conversed, and a thrill of delight shook my frame when she spoke and
smiled. But it was brief. She felt no pain; her hurt was unto death.
Soon her eye grew dim. She drew a small crucifix from her bosom,
and held it before her face, while she clasped my hand. Her glazing
eye was fixed upon the emblem:
"' Oh, Sancta Maria!  0-ra-pro-no-bis —!
" I took her in my arms. She glanced at me-speechless, with an
ineffable smile-pointed upward, and was gone. *  *  It was night,
but I still held her in my arms. I could not consent. I would not
have it so; she was mine; I would not yield her to death.  *  *  *
Then, laying her on the grass, I raved, prayed and cursed by turns.
"Morning found me still there, but exhausted. The first fierce
agony of grief had yielded to a dull pain, which seemed unending.




DOLORES.


87


Farther up in the foot-hills I found a secluded cove, walled in by
precipitous rocks and beautiful with bright-hued mountain flowers;
and there, with my hunting-knife, I dug her grave. Taking one tress
from her dark hair, I laid her to rest, then wandered away in the
mountains, careless what became of me. The buds of the mountain
rose, with a few raspberries, were my only food for days; often I pondered whether I should not abandon exertion, and yield a life which
was worth so little. But life is sweet, and youth does not easily surrender it.
"The fifth day, I was found by a party of hunters, who took me
to Fort Lancaster, where I was received as one risen from the dead.
The mountain fever, natural result of my toils and sufferings, now
prostrated me, and for weeks I hovered between life and death.
The late autumn saw me again abroad, and with returning strength
came a desire for vengeance. I sought the capital of Texas to
take arms against the Mexicans, but a sort of peace had been made.
Dissatisfied, restless, but with my yearning for revenge not quite
gone, I drifted eastward and through the State of Louisiana.  In
the spring of 1846 I descended Red River to New Orleans. Retiring late the night of my arrival, and utterly ignorant of what had
occurred among nations for many months, in the morning I was
wakened by the noise of fife and drum, by the yells of a multitude
in the streets, and the long resonant cry of a recruiting agent:
"'Turn out! Turn out! all you who are willing to fight fbr your
country!  General Taylor is surrounded, and in all probability cut
to pieces, but come on and take revenge out of the d-d Mexicans!'
"I was mad with joy. Without breakfast, and scarcely more than
half dressed, I ran into the street, and was soon in the ranks of the
recruits. The old cannon of 1812 were brought out and thundered
through the city; thousands, tens of thousands thronged the streets,
with loud cries for country and vengeance, and before the next night
a full regiment was ready to embark.   The incoming boat from
Matamoras brought news that, instead of being 'cut to pieces,' your
general had really been victorious at Palo Alto and Resaca de la
Palma; but there was no cessation in the excitement and the volunteering. In a wonderfully short time our little command was on the
Rio Grande. But there was a long period of inaction, and before it
ended, I, with many others, was transferred to the army near Vera
Cruz. Then there was action enough.
At Cerro Goirdo, Cherubusco, Chepultepec, in a dozen fierce encounters, I sought death where others fell, but found it not. I stood




88


WESTERN WILDS.


amid smoke and carnage, and saw my companions fall on all sides;
I marched where shells plowed the earth and swords gleamed
in the air, but passed them all and lived. But the storm which
brought death to others, brought a strange quiet to me.  I saw so
much death that it reconciled me to life; I saw such suffering among
the poor people we had come to fight, that pity took the place of
hate, and I grew ashamed of my thoughts of vengeance. The regiment to which I belonged was the first to be discharged. Then a
longing grew upon me to revisit my native land, and early in 1848
I took passage for Havre. But I reached Geneva only to find all
Europe rocking with revolution. Storms and tumult were to be my
element; I might change my sky, I could not change my destiny.
"It was the year of revolution. France ejected Louis Philippe;
Berlin followed in a few days with the students' insurrection, and
the capture of the palace; the Viennese were soon in arms; Hungary struggled bravely against perfidious Austria; even the long
enslaved Italians rose against Carlo Alberto, and little Baden dared
the anger of Prussia. In vain the tears and prayers of my mother,
in vain the caresses of my sisters and nieces, or the calm arguments
of my father; they had found me only to lose me at once. I hurried to join the Badenischen insurgents, then hastily organizing
against the Prussian regulars. For awhile all went well. It seemed
that man was at last to be free. But our triumphing was short.
France took another Napoleon; the troops fired on the Berlin
patriots; Wiindischgratz bombarded Vienna; Gorgey surrendered
without a battle, and the little band under Kossuth, driven to the
inhospitable plains of inner Hungary, succumbed to the mongrel
hordes of Cossack, Sclav, and Carpathian, poured upon them by the
Russian Czar. The Badenischen army, too, retreated, and the revolutionists mostly sought the New World. The best blood of the
fatherland was expelled, and Germany's loss became America's gain.
"With many others I was captured; but, unlike them, I was a
citizen of no country, and could claim no protection or ask no
clemency. Four long years I languished in a German prison. Need
I recall the lonesome hours? The days of unavailing struggle with
myself; the nights of restless tossing, or sleep haunted by dreams
of the dead. Daily I watched the gleam of yellow light breaking
in through the little grating above my head, slowly moving around
the walls of my dungeon, and dying away at last on the opposite
side. The daily passage of that ray was my only relic of a bright
past, my all of life, of light, of liberty. Nightly I sought relief by




DOLORES.


89


thoughts that reached beyond the tomb; the dim rays of natural
religion barely gave a gleam of hope that Dolores still lived in
another sphere-they might feebly cheer, they could not guide me.
And even as I recalled that nightly hope, or watched that daily ray,
I ultimately resigned myself to look for happiness only beyond the
grave, or nursed the hope of liberty and revenge.  Ah! could I
escape, I would raise a band of dead hearts like mine and wage inexpiable war on kings.
" At last all hope died out. Even the desire for vengeance died.
I was conscious only of a dull pain. The memory of the dead
seemed as a dream of long forgotten years; and vwhen I spoke, as
sometimes I did, aloud, my own voice jarred on my ear.  For two
years the jailer who brought my food was all I saw; then for awhile
I had a companion in captivity. But we said little; confinement
had deadened the social instincts. We talked neither of the struggles of the past, nor of hope for the future; our hearts had died in
the awful solitude. Without passing through death, we were inmates
of the tomb.
"Why I was released finally I never knew. But I was, with all
the others, probably because all danger of insurrection was past, and
the government regarded us with contempt.  But I came into the
world as not of it. My father had died late in '48; my mother,
worn with grief, had soon followed him; my sisters had married
even before my return from America, and other cares and other
loves filled their hearts. Worse than all, liberty was dead. France,
Germany, Italy, Hungary, had yielded again to despots; I saw no
hope for the rights of man. Again I sought the Rocky Mountains,
whose majestic scenery brought balm to my wounded heart. I have
learned that he who yields to fierce impulses or excessive feeling,
does so but to lay bare his soul to a thousand strokes; that he who
would move faster than his age, will soon be alone with sorrow, and
that the Brotherhood of Man comes not by spasmodic struggles, but
by steady toil.
"Here, where my misery began, in communion with mighty
nature I find peace. The memory of Dolores has become a mild
joy; her image is ever present to cheer me. The thought of our
affection has become a sort of religion. Near where I found and
lost her, I best love to dwell, and every returning autumn finds me
a pilgrim to the little mountain glen that contains her grave."




CHAPTER VI.


POLYGAMIA.
TURN back the wheels of time, imaginative reader, from 1874 to the
autumn of 1868, and allow the author to resume his personal narrative.
The first storm of the season had just tipped the summits of the
Wasatch with light snow, while summer still smiled upon the valleys,
when our train wound slowly through Parley's Canion, and emerged
upon the eastern "bench," from which I obtained my first view of the
Mormon Capital. The city stands
at the north-east corner of a valley
shaped  like  a horse-shoe —the
Wasatch the eastern boundary,
the Oquirrah the western, and the
lake lying to the north-west across
the open end. A small spur puts
_ r      oout westwardly from the Wasatch,
and breaks down in successive
benches" to the upper part of
the city; out of it flow City Creek
and several smaller streams, and
along its base bubble up hot chem-.                   ical springs and fountains of pure
brine.
The topography is Palestine reproduced. We have Lake Utah, a fresh water mountain tarn, discharging through the Jordan into another Dead Sea —the Great Salt
Lake.  Along the Jordan extends a fertile but narrow valley, its
widest section near the city; all around are mountains, and beyond
those mountains long desert wastes, with only here and there a fertile
spot. North of Salt Lake City numerous coves indent the mountains;
in each is a small fertile tract and a Mormon settlement, while southward, for four hundred miles, is a series of narrow, fan-shaped valleys
settled in like manner.
I found the city a nice place to rest in, especially in September; and
after a journey of eight hundred miles over barren plains, like all vis(90)




POL YGAMIA.


91


itors, I exaggerated its beauty. There was first the morning walk in
the dry, bracing air, then a plunge in the warm-spring bath, and an
indulgence in the luscious Salt Lake peaches, after which the day was
devoted to iivestigating Mormonism. I called upon all the Mormon
worthies.  First upon Orson Pratt, solitary as the only man of learning
in the Church, and that learning singularly one-sided. At once a fanatic and a mathematician (unique combination), he has devoted a lifetime of labor and sacrifice to perverting the Scripture, in the vain attempt to bring back the modern world to the social system of the Asiatics, and a worse than Jewish theocracy.
At once the poorest, proudest, most learned, and most devoted of
the elders, he is also the worst
snubbed by Brigham Young,
who has often takenl a vulgar
delight in humbling the man
whose culture and scholarship
he can not forgive. While he
is systematically ignored in the
government of the Church, yet
array of Eastern visitors, he          glt
is invariably put up to defend
the doctrines of Joe Smith and
Brigham; and so, while best
known to the world of any man
in Brigham's kingdom, he is
constantly in trouble, and some- a       -
times on the ragged edge of
starvation. In early life he            oBsON PRAT.
was a man of action-a traveling missionary, eloquent in the cause and
full of zeal, a successful preacher, and voluminous writer; now he is a
dreaming astronomer, whose head is among the stars.
Later I met W. H. Hooper, monogamous delegate in Congress
from this polygamous territory, a man for whom I at first entertained
some respect, but learned to distrust by reason of his action in regard
to the Mountain Meadow murderers. A Marylander of the old type,
native of the " eastern shore," first a merchant's clerk and then captain of a Mississippi steamer, he started across the plains in 1850 on
a business venture; but on arriving in Utah found a Mormon wife
and an appropriate mission, as the plausible go-between to do Brighanm's work among Gentile law-makers. It is not possible that a


0




92


WESTERN WILDS.


man of his mental make-up ever believed Mormonism; the more reasonable supposition is that he, like many other leaders of this people,
holds all religions in equal indifference, but finds his account in
this one, and is willing the Church should run along as comfortably
as may be, while he accumulates wealth and takes physical comfort.
The husband of but one wife, he has never held ecclesiastical position
in the Church, but has been remarkablye useful during many years
service at Washington. In 1872, Brigham concluded that a polygamous people ought to be represented by a polygamist, and accordingly
sent George Q. cannon, the four-wived apostle, to Washington. Congress, which expelled Bowen for having two wives, admitted Cannon
with four, and Hooper returned to his store and bank. As all things
spiritual are in doubt, any man is excusable for believing any religion; but we can barely excuse one who, in mere indifference, professes belief in the worst imposture of the age.
My best interview was with
GOGeorge A. Smith, full cousin
to the original Joe, and then
an apostle, but a little later
chosen in full conference to
acet            the place of Heber C. Kim_       ball, deceased, as First Coun-~cilor to Brigham   Young.
r         This man was long known
* among Gentiles as the most
I c q  p         gorgeous liar in the Rocky
Mountains          le had four
sermons, usually selecting the
orec most fitting to the occasion; and recited the history
Iof the Church with such an
ingenious mixture of fact and
GEORGE ASMITH.           fiction, theat his dazed hearers
accepted the whole as gospel. In his narrative, Mormonism had a
roll of martyrs longeilthan that of the primitive church, and an array
of miracles which quite put the Mosaic record in the background.
Of sanguine temperament, easily believing every thing that made for
the glory of Mormonism, and throwing off with equal ease whatever
might have suggested doubt to an earnest thinker, fully persuaded of
the Mormon doctrine, that it was right to deceive for the good of the
Church, and with a brilliant imagination, that made him believe any




POL YGAMIA.


thing he had told three times, he was by nature well fitted for the
place he had occupied from the first-that of Church Historian.
To him all doubtful points in Mormon annals were referred as to
an infallible oracle.  When Gentile visitors to the tabernacle were
to be impressed, he stood next to Orson Pratt, and when doubtful
questions were to be settled in favor of Brigham's pet designs, he
found a precedent or made one with equal readiness.  He consistently believed and taught that it was the duty of the Mormon laity
"to be as a tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood;" of each
order of the priesthood to yield implicit obedience to their superiors
next in rank; and of all orders, to be subject to the lightest command
of 'their divinely appointed leader, Brigham Young. To the last of
his life he obeyed Brigham's lightest request, and died in the confident faith that he could only enter heaven on Brigham's voucher,
properly indorsed by Joseph Smith. To such depths of abasement
may the heaven-born intellect sink.  He was succeeded as First
Councilor by Brigham's son, "Johnnie" Young; for it is one of
the "first principles of the gospel" as known in Utah, that all power
is to be kept concentrated in the hands of the Smiths and Youngs.
Daniel H. Wells was then, and is now, Brigham's Second Councilor,
these three constituting the First Presidency of the Church, and having
the right of final decision on all appeals from the lower priesthood, of
whatever branch. Wells is, by popular election and "Divine appointment," a Prophet and a Squire, a Mayor and a President, a
Lieutenant-General and the husband of five wives. He is a tall, angular and most ungainly Saint, whose face and head bear involuntary
witness to the truth of Darwinism. Borrowing a term from dimenovel literature, the Gentiles style him " The one-eyed pirate of the
Wasatch."   Long acquaintance with his career has only confirmed
my first impression of him: he is the most dangerous man in the
priesthood. The others are mostly impostors; he believes it, bloody
doctrines and all. Had he held the reins from 1870 till 1873, he
would have precipitated a savage conflict, and the end would have
been-Mormonism drowned in blood, as was the Anabaptist schism,
or a new development and fresh lease of life on the cry of " persecution." It is well that he has small chance of succeeding Brigham;
so much more dangerous is a fanatic than an impostor.
Brigham Young I did not see or converse with till some time
after, but was for many years familiar with his appearance in the
pulpit. Physically, the man is as near perfect as is ever allowed to
one of our wretchedly developed race. Six feet high and uncom



94


WESTERN WILDS.


monly well muscled, he is yet so compactly built that strangers invariably pronounce him smaller than he is; and one who first sees
him step out of his carriage on Main Street, clad in hisshort, gray
business coat, is apt to speak of him as "dumpy."  He measures
forty-four inches around the chest, and weighs at least two hundred
pounds; his hands and feet are rather large, his head extremely so,
and very broad across the base, sloping thence before and behind
toward the crown.  With very light or golden hair, a cold, glittering blue eye and a massive under-jaw that shuts like a vice, he has
the firmness and vigor that usually consist with such an organization, and that happy mixture of the sanguine and bilious temperaments which makes one easily believe himself a man of destiny. Of
the hardiest Vermont stock, he was put up by nature to last a hundred
and twenty years, but hardships and the worry of governing have
shortened his life from twenty to forty years, and he may die anywhere between eighty and a hundred, retaining possession of his faculties and growing more tyrannical and avaricious to the last.
Not at all a talented man in the common sense of the word, his
power is largely the result of his immense physical potency. His
physique is one that makes a man do and dare, and then take the
results of that doing and daring as marks of divine favor. 'Even
sneering unbelievers who shake hands with him feel the impress of
his magnetic potentiality, nor is it pleasant to face him with the consciousness that one is his enemy. Many an apostate can bear witness that long after being convinced that Mormonism was a hollow
fraud, which he ought to abandon, and could abandon without
danger, he still felt a grievous dread of standing up in the "School
of the Prophets" to face the wrath of Brigham Young. To women
of the uncultured and impressible sort, such a man is often as fascinating as a gentle and purring lion: one with all power in reserve
to be exercised only for them and upon their enemies. Even a few
non-Mormon women have confessed a mild admiration for this mass
of power, and at least two Gentile ladies have so far forgotten themselves as to write in fulsome praise of a man whose very existence is
a standing insult to womanhood. Such respect hath great native
power and virile force.
Before an audience in sympathy with him he is an effective speaker;
he can, by a series of strong, nervous appeals, carry them along to
almost any pitch of excitement, and commit them, by voice and vote,
to almost any absurdity. Add a ready command of language, albeit
the vernacular of an uneducated Vermonter, and rare powers as a




POL YGAMIA.


95


mimic, and we have the secret of Brigham's strength as an orator.
Of eloquence he has none whatever; before a cultured or critical
audience he would be a hopeless failure. Whatever greatness he has,
finds its source in his splendid physical organization. Thence is his
energy, his invincible will, his iron disregard of the sufferings of
others-the qualities that have made him. His was also the rare
good fortune to fall just at the right time into just the right place for
his peculiar talents; for it is scarcely possible that in the ordinary
pursuits of life he would have made more than ordinary success.
The accident of one man's death and the apostasy of two others, made
him President of the Twelve Apostles just before Joe Smith's death;
after that event, there was none to oppose him save the flighty and unreliable Sidney Rigdon, whom the Mormons had never trusted, and so
Brigham necessarily became head of the Church.
BRIGHAM'S RESIDENCES.
It is a noteworthy fact that in almost every scheme Brigham.has
undertaken, except managing the Mormons, he has completely failed.
His Colorado warehouses, beet-sugar factories, Cottonwood Canal, B.
Y. Express, and hand-cart emigration scheme, one and all, proved disastrous failures, the last resulting in three hundred deaths, and the
most frightful suffering. Similarly every colony Brigham has sent to
the surrounding territories has finally beej abandoned as a failure,
from Lemhi, on the north, to San Bernardino, on the south. Not a
few look forward to his death as a great aid to the. disintegration of
Mormondom; his continued life will do far more in that direction.
When he took command of the Mormons they had, according to their
own accounts, over 200,000 members in all the world; now they num



96


WESTERN WILDS.


ber less than half as many. They submitted all to him, and he has.
spent thirty years in teaching them the terrors of a religious despotism. Thousands have learned that it is easy to surrender rights, but
hard to regain them.  At first he only robbed his devotees, now
he insults them. A few more years of power and he will, to quote the
language of a Mormon, " hitch them up and plow the ground with
them."
Many intelligent men have concluded that Brigham was honest
in his religious professions.  I can not agree with them. I might
reject all other evidence of his hypocrisy, but I can not reject his
own.   Again and again he has virtually admitted that his religion
was a mere convenience. To a young Mormon friend of the writer,
whom he was urging to return to the fold, Brigham said: "It makes
no difference whether you believe in it or not; we need you; just
come along and be baptized, and pay up a little on your tithing, and
it will be all right."  To another he said: "It's no great concern
what you believe; I've got as good a right to start a new religion
as Christ or Mohammed, or any other man."  And yet again, when
speaking of the vote of each semi-annual conference indorsing him
as a prophet, he said; "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a
prophet, but I have been profitable to this people."  Since then the
Gentiles have usually designated him  "The Profit."  There was a
time, I think, when he believed his religion and worked hard for
it; but as he rose in the Church he learned more, and became what
he practically describes himself, a philosophic infidel. A man whose
convictions depend largely on his interests, with a happy power of
self-deception, a great deal of cunning, some executive ability, and
behirnl it all an immense physical potency, with little mercy or conscience to temper it-such, in brief, is Brigham Young.
Late in September, I took a walk to Bear River Canon, some
eighty miles north of the city, stopping often with the rural Saints
and noting their ways. This trip was through the most enlightened
part of Utah, almost the only part the Eastern tourist ever sees.
The villages are neat and quiet, and the little farms well watered
and cultivated.  But even here the great lack is apparent.  The
Saints have adopted the bee as their emblem, and have stopped
with the blind instincts of the bee-content with food and shelter,
with but little regard for the higher man.  Near Ogden was an
old Dane, living with a mother and two daughters as wives; in
Brigham City lived a bishop, married to two of his own nieces, and
near Bear River was another Dane, living with three wives in a




P OL YGAMIA.


97


cabin not large enough to make one comfortable.  Such cases were
my first select specimens of the practical operations of the "Celestial Law."  As this was but one of many journeys I made in
Utah, a few general notes on the topography will be in order.
The Wasatch Mountains on the east, and Sierra Nevada on the
west, like the two sides of a ( ), inclose a region known as the
Great Basin, in which nature appears to have worked on a different plan from that pursued in the rest of the country.  All the
streams run towards the center, none towards the sea; a river is
larger at the head than at the mouth-when it has a mouth-very
few of the lakes have any outlet, and, with rare exceptions, both
pools and lakes are bitter with salt, iron, lime, or alkali.  From
the mountains which form the rim of the Great Basin, sub-ranges
successively fall off towards the center, and the whole interior plain
is an almost unbroken desert.  But from the Wasatch and Sierras
many streams put out towards the center, and, at the points where
they leave the mountains, are bordered by little fan-shaped valleys.
These constitute all the cultivable land in the Basin; the rest is
fit only for timber or grazing, or is totally barren.  Throughout
the Basin all the detached mountains run north and south; on
them is the only timber, and about their base the only grass to be
found.  If the mountain is high enough to supply melting snow
throughout the summer, there may be a settlement at its base;
otherwise all the streams that issue from  it will be dry in early
spring, and cultivation, that is to say, irrigation, be impossible.
Southward, the country grows steadily dryer and more barren;
the valleys smaller, the deserts larger, the streams more unreliable.
In Arizona and Southern Utah, I found it difficult, indeed, to get
water twice in a day's ride. In the north the most rugged mountains are relieved by graceful adjuncts; there is a gradual ascent
from plain to bench, from bench to foot-hill and lower sub-range,
and over all is a faint green tinge from brush or bunch-grass, or
a dreamy haze that softens the rudest outlines.  But in the south
there is a grandeur that is awfully suggestive-suggestive of death
and worn-out lands, of cosmic convulsions and volcanic catastrophes that swept away whole races of pre-Adamites, There the
broad plateaus are cut abruptly by deep cafions with perpendicular
sides, sometimes 2000 feet in height; there is a less gradual approach to the highest ranges, and the peaks stand out sharply defined against a hard blue sky.  The air is noticeably dryer; there
is no haze to soften the view, and the severe outlines of the cliffs
7




98


WESTERN WILDS.


seem to frown menacingly upon one who threads the cafrons. Needle rocks project hundreds of feet above the general level, while
hard volcanic dykes rise above the softer lime or sandstonemighty battlements, abrupt and unpassable-Pelion upon Ossa piled,
as in Titanic war.
The western half of the great Basin is Nevada, the eastern, Mormon Utah. All that part of the Territory east of the Wasatch is
still the range of the Mountain Ute, and, for the most part, unfit
for white settlements. As nine-tenths of the cultivable land lies
along the western base of the Wasatch, in the little detached valleys mentioned, it results that Mormon Utah consists of a narrow
line of settlements down the center of the Territory: an attenuated
commonwealth rarely more than ten miles wide, but nearly seven
hundred miles long-firom Oneida, in Idaho, to the Rio Virgen, in
Arizona.  Geographically, it nearly fills the definition of a lineextension without breadth or thickness.  Such communities would
naturally develop a different system of law and social organization
from that of a continuously fertile and habitable state like Illinois.  Manifestly something like the Cantonal system would spring
up, with the Commune as a subdivision of the Canton.   But in
Utah theocracy came in to varp and distort the natural growth
of government, and subordinate every thing to the strengthening
of priestly power. Against this the Gentiles and Liberal Mormons have unceasingly contended, and hence that interminable struggle-theocracy vs. republicanism-which has so long made up the
history of Utah, and in which for many years I was an active participant.
Through all my wanderings in the West I came back to Utah as
my home, and to this contest as to my chosen field of action. Even
now a glow comes over me at thought of blows given and taken, and
the little circle of choice spirits, half philosophers, half politicians,
that helped make my life in Utah so pleasant. There was 0. J.
Hollister, half' enthusiast, half business man, and wholly a student
and man of literary tastes, who had had, perhaps, a more varied experience than any of the number. Reared in Columbia County, _New
York, he early felt the " cramp " of farm life there, and sought his
fortune first in Pennsylvania, and then in New Jersey and Maryland.
The westward wave carried him to Kansas, and when the contest was
over there, on to the gold fields of Pike's Peak; and before his frame
had hardened into manhood, he was busy among the pioneers of a
new State. Mining, lumbering, freighting, and ranching gave vigor




POLYGAMIA.


99


to his body and mind till the war broke out, when hle joined Gilpin's
Colorado regiment. With them he nmarched a thousand miles; and
helped drive Sibley out of New Mexico. then returned, and again engaged in min' ng, and finally graduated as an editor, in which capacity he
came to Utah. Our first year there saw him enthusiastie eager for
reform, confident that wonders could be done by union and energy.
A little later, he married the sister of Vice-president Colfax, took a
good office, grew rich and conservative, and concluded that the Utah
question was to be slowly worked out rather than quickly fought
out.
There, too. was Colonel J. H. Wickizer, who for six years regulated the mails of Utah, Montana, and Idaho, and provided his Gentile friends with an unfailing store of anecdote and apt illustration.
He was long a colleague and intimate friend of Abraham Lincoln,
rode the circuit with him in Illinois, and contended often with him
at the bar.  A man of nice and discriminating taste in letters, he
was a walking encyclopedia of Western wit, humor, and historic incident. His point of attack was the utter nonsense of Mormonism and
its theocratic government; for it is to be noted that all of us thought
little and cared less about the religion-it was the civil (or rather uncivil) government we objected to.
Other active participants in our political and social plans were
Governor George L. Woods and Secretary Geo. A Black. But the
central figure in Utah, during our period of greatest excitement, was
Chief Justice James B. McKean. Descended on one side from the
Machians of Scotland, and on the other from the French Huguenots
that settled on Long Island, he seemed to unite the fearless conscientiousness of the one race with the tireless energy of the other. A
case has been made out against him on the charge that he was rather
fanatical in his dislike of polygamy and theocracy; but it was a kind
of fanaticism we were-sorely in need of in Utah. He and his colleagues, Justices Hawley and Strickland, were the first Federal
judges who boldly faced the difficulty presented by the anomalous
organization of the district courts. For twenty years the United
States judges had for the most part yielded the point, and this yielding, threw all the power into the hands of the Mormon bishops, who
acted as territorial judges. Judge McKean decided that this ought
not to be so; made the United States marshal the ministerial officer
of his court; got a grand jury over which the Church had no control,
and entered on an inquiry into the many murders committed between
1855 and 1863. The Supreme Court of the United States overruled




100


WESTERN WILDS.


his decision after his court had been in operation twenty months;
but it was too late to save tile Church from complete exposure. The
good had been accomplished, the evidence had been brought out, and
the guilt traced home; and though the final decision resulted in
turning a hundred and twenty-eight murderers and other criminals
loose, it could not suppress the evidence already published. From
that time forward the Mormon Church was on the defensive, and its
speakers ceased to apologize for murder. This great work these
judges accomplished; and if their law was wrong, their action was
right, and its results in every way good for Utah.
In time, there came to our aid many independent Mormons, men
of active talents, but too much given to verbal hair-splitting. They
were, one and all, infidels of the toughest stock; for the man who has
been a Mormon for many years rarely takes a firm hold on any other
faith. Having been so badly fooled once, he inclines to regard all
religion as either fraud or delusion. I smile at thought of one
such who was one of my political co-laborers. He talked long and
loud of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but cursed the administration,
and despaired of republican government; he quoted Tom Paine and
Herbert Spencer by the hour; was poloquent on first principles and
universal law, and argued on the Supreme Good, the control of
passion, and the unknowable, till he was black in the face with anger.
To him, the New Testament was a myth, the Banner of Light a gospel; he put his faith in Spiritual Philosophy, and believed nearly every
thing but the Bible.
The warring factions were at peace when I entered Utah; but the
October conference of the Mormons renewed the fight, by issuing a
decree against all Gentile merchants. It was made cause of excommunication for any Saint to patronize them in any way whatever. In
eight months ten Gentile firms had left the city, and in August, 1869,
Salt Lake contained no more than two hundred Gentiles. The Union
Pacific Railroad was completed in May of that year, and let a little
light into the Territory; soon the interest in mining revived, and we
turned our eyes towards the mountains as the last hope for non-Mormons. Had this resource failed, I am positive there would not be a
hundred Gentiles in Utah to-day. The social despotism of the Church
was so great they could not have remained.
In September, 1869, I made a pleasant journey to the Sevier Mines,
two hundred miles south of Salt Lake, in company with some miners.
My memory does not recall a more pleasant journey. All day we
rolled along through grassy meads or over rocky flats, with a blue sky




POL YGAMIA.


10t


overhead, and fanned by the soft airs of autumn in that most delightful climate. The coves opening back into the mountains were rich in
bunch-grass, in which jack-rabbits were abundant; sage hens and
other small fowl were numerous on the plain, and large flocks of
ducks were found along the stream. The Sevier Valley has an average elevation of five thousand feet above the sea; the summers are
mild, and in winter snow rarely falls to any depth; cattle live on the
range nine months in the year, and yet the region is free from the
scorching heat of Arizona. Very little of the valley is cultivable,
however; stock-ranching is the principal occupation. We passed
through seven walled towns, which had been abandoned by the Mormons on account of hostile Indians, and were still uninhabited. At
Marysvale, last town on the Sevier, we found the Mormons returning to their homes, peace having been made with the Indians. There
we turned into the mountains, and toiled for six hours in advancing
six miles up Pine Gulch. One moment we were on the edge of a
narrow track where an overturn would have sent us a hundred feet
into the bed of the stream, and the next struggling through a narrow
chasm at the bottom of the gulch, with walls of granite rising on both
sides of us, and above them the sloping sides of the canon half a
mile in height, and covered with timber to the very summit. The
roaring brook, now beside us, now far below us, and again dashing
against our wagon wheels, seemed to be singing of the snowy heights
whence it came; and at every point where a depression or obstructing
rock formed a pool, the shining mountain trout were to be seen in
numbers through the clear fluid, though its temperature was but little
above that of ice-water.
After a week in this new mining region, I returned to Salt Lake
City, and to the normal condition of a polemic editor. The tide had
turned. The Gentiles were coming in again, mostly to engage in
mining, and in a year from that date the Territory contained several
thousand non-Mormons. By the autumn of 1871, all the mountains
of central Utah were dotted with miners' cabins and traversed by prospectors. By 1875, there was a non-Mormon population in Utah of
fifteen or twenty thousand, with a political organization, churches,
schools, and daily papers of their own, having political control of
one county and half a dozen towns. But the old conflict goes on
just the same. A theocracy never yields power till compelled to. The
young Mormons welcome the change; the older ones, and especially
the priesthood, only regret that they were not more severe and exclusive when they had the power. But Mormonism in a family never




102


WESTERN WILDS.


outlasts one generation. Old Mormons die, young ones grow up infidels; so in due time the system must expire by natural limitation,
especially -since the foreign supply has ceased. The original force of
fanaticism wears itself out. So it was with the Irvingites, Muggletonians, etc., and so it will doubtless be with Mormonism. Such a delusion is like one of Utah's mountain streams, which plunges from a
rocky gulch as though it would tear up all the country below; five
miles down the plain it has become a gentle rivulet or sluggish slough,
five miles further, and there is a channel of dry sand, with here and
there a brackish pool. Such seems to be the course of all religious delusions which do not end in blood.
But the death of Mormonism will not end Utah's troubles. Instead
of 75,000 fanatics, there will be 150,000 infidels-all those of Mormon
parentage, having no philosophy to take the place of religion. The debris of Mormonism will encumber the land for a generation. The
original Mormon converts were from the most hardy and virtuous
peasantry in Europe; they came over as a rule in middle life, and Mormonism could not entirely spoil them. Their children will suffer all
the evil results of polygamy and superstitious folly, with none of the
restraint imposed by a theocracy-all the evil and none of the good.
There will be a laxity of conduct and a general flabbiness of the moral
fiber, which will not be cured till they learn by dire experience that
the way of the transgressor is hard. The Mormon doctrine that " it is
right to lie for the good of the Church," has made deceit an institution.
It can scarcely be said that any disgrace attaches to perjury. Jews and
Gentiles who live long among this people too often become addicted to
the same practices; for, say they, "if we do n't, they get the advantage." There is in Utah more downright lying to the square mile than
in any other region on this continent; and the religious lying is the
worst of all. Thus stands the Utah situation: the Jews lie for gain,
the Gentiles from association, and the Mormons "for Christ's sake."




CHAPTER VII.


THE PACIFIC SLOPE.
A YEAR in Utah had brought renewed health and strength; but the
love of Western travel was aroused. I would see Nevada and California; I would enjoy the sublime scenery of the Sierras, and breathe
the soft airs of the Pacific.
The Union and Central Pacific Railroads had joined in laying the
last rail at Promontory, on the 10th of May, 1869, and thousands
were taking this, the first, opportunity to visit the Far West in restful
comfort. Corinne, my starting point, had grown with railroad suddenness to a "city" of 1,500 people; then fallen away to a rather dull
village of 500. Along the track.west of it had sprung up five tenttowns, whose equals were never seen: Promontory, Deadfall, Murder
Gulch, Last Chance, and Painted Post. At one of these, in its brief
existence of two weeks, there were five homicides. The railroad laborers, then being paid off by hundreds, were the natural prey of the
harpies who occupied these towns.
Among the first families of Deadfall were two plainsmen, known as
Arkansaw and Curly -, the former a " fly shot," the latter noted for
nothing more than a strange, reckless humor, and immense capacity
for whisky. Crazed by intemperance and the loss of his money at
gambling, he finally took on a huge disgust at life, and one day said to
Arkansaw:
"Would you do me a favor?"
"With pleasure, old pard. What is it?"
"Just to shoot me through the head."
"Certainly, if you wish it-do any little thing of that sort for an
old friend. But let's step down to the sand-bar; it wouldn't do to bother
the folks."
The whole population turned out to witness the shooting. A line having been formed, Curly kneeled in front of the crowd, and Arkansaw
took position and fired, the ball just cutting the hair from the crown
of Curly's head.
"D-n you, don't mangle me," was his comment; "you must do
better than that."
(103)




104


WESTERN WILDS.


Calling for whisky, Arkansaw swallowed an immense draught; then
raised his pistol slowly and with evident deliberation. There was a
sharp report, and Curly fell forward on his face, but in an instant
sprang to his feet. Arkansaw's shot had cut his left ear clean from
his head! The sharp sting and flow of warm blood suddenly changed
his mind, and bounding into the ravine, he took to his heels, followed
by the yells and laughter of the crowd. When Arkansaw told me
this story in Corinne (where I then edited a paper), he laughed till the
tears stood in his eyes; he considered it the champion joke of his
career.
Promontory was for that season the transfer point between the Union
and Central Pacific; and was composed about equally of hotels,
saloons and gambling tents, with a few stores and shops. There
flourished every form of "cut-throat" gambling known: three-card
monte, ten-die, the strap game, chuckaluck, and the patent lock game.
Occasionally " legitimate " gambling, like faro or keno, was established;
but " cut-throat " games were the rule. " Cappers " boarded the cars
at Corinne or Kelton, formed acquaintance with their victims by the
time the train reached Promontory, and led them straight into the
dens. Strange that so many men are yet deceived when these tricks
have been exposed so often; strange that even old travelers can be
caught by devices explained a hundred years ago in the "Rogue's
Lexicon." But no less strange than true, that almost every day these
fellows robbed somebody. No less a personage than Don Pico,
formerly Mexican Governor of California, left $600 in. gold with the
"Promontory boys."
What I particularly admire in the "sports" is the fine morality they
display in always having the loser in the wrong. The latter is certain
he is going to cheat the gambler, otherwise he would never venture.
He thinks the gambler ignorant of the fact that the card is marked,
or the lock " hampered," or the trap changed, as the case may be, by
the "capper;" and goes in onl what he considers a "dead sure thing."
Hence there should be no legal action to recover money lost in gambling. Between the gambler and the loser the moralities are equal;
both are rogues at heart, only the former is the more expert.
From Promontory to the foot of the Sierra Nevadas, there seemed
scarcely a break in the awful barrenness and desolation. The air was
bracing and the sky beautifully clear, flecked only by light silvery
clouds; but there the list of beauties ends. There are mountains
red and yellow, plains dazzling white, dull gray or dirty brown, and
alternate vistas of sand, flint, salt and alkali. Here and there are




THE PACIFIC SLOPE


105


large tracts of bunch-grass, but that, brown as broom-sedge, does not
to an Eastern eye relieve the landscape. Occasionally the -mountain
scenery rises to the sublime, but for the most part the view is strangely
wearisome. On some people these scenes produce a deep and peculiar
melancholy. It is as though all hope had died out of mother earth,
leaving the dead embers of a burnt-out land as witnesses to the awful
despair of nature.
HUMBOLDT PALISADES.
For hundreds of miles after leaving the fertile valley of Bear
River there is scarcely place for a garden. There is first the Promontory Range and then Indian Creek Desert; then Red Dome and Red
Desert; then the Goose Creek Range and the Goose Creek Desert;
then the Humboldt Range and the Humbolt Desert, and finally a few
detached buttes and sun-scorched sand-hills through which we pass to
the Great Nevada Desert, last, longest and worst of all. Into it flow
Carson, Truckee, Reese, and Humboldt rivers and a hundred smaller
streams; out of it comes nothing. Salt lakes, alkaline "sinks" and
mud flats alone relieve the dreary monotony; the phenomena are hot
winds, blinding dust, the mirage, and the shadow of death. The only
view of any grandeur is at Humboldt Cafion, now better known as the
Palisades, a wild gorge through which the river has forced its way in
some far distant geologic age, and where the railroad track lies along
the base of a perpendicular rock many hundred feet in height. Far




106


WESTERN WILDS.


below the excavated track the waters of the Humboldt foam over the
uneven bottom of a narrow channel, obstructed in many places by the
immense rocks, which have fallen from the cliff. The lack of colors
prevents that singular variety which is the charm of Echo and Weber
Cafions, but the cold, unchanging gray imparts a wild and gloomy
beauty instead. On the south side of the caiion the Devil's Peak rises
fifteen hundred feet directly above the river.
The needs of miners and stock-ranchers in the adjacent mountains
have built up a few trading towns along this route; and taking the
road by sections, I spent some days at each. First, over Sunday, at
Toano, on Terrace Mountain, where the Sabbath was kept as regularly
as in New England-the men went hunting or rested at the gambling
hall; the girls had a dance or got drunk. Next at the lively and
furiously speculative town of Elko, outfitting point for the rich White
Pine region, and consequently a place of importance-while the mines
held out. Then at Argenta, Winnemucca and Reno, gray dots upon
a white desert, and but slight relief to the landscape. Every-where
west of Utah we find California work and ideas, pay in coin, and encounter the Chinese with their chip hats and linen blouses, rice feed,
cheap labor, and universal "no sahvey" to any question they don't
want to understand. They then worked for thirty-one dollars per
month, boarding themselves, which amounted to an embargo on white
labor wherever they came in competition.
The Humboldt, which is a good sized stream as long as it keeps
within the cool shadow of the mountains, decreases with every mile as
soon as it enters the desert; at last we see it no more, for what little
is left has turned southward, and is lost in the "sink."  The worst
desert we cross in the night, and wake at daylight to glad relief, for
we are climbing the Sierras, among the grand pines and along the
crystal waters of the foaming Truckee. To one just from the treeless
plains, no sight is so grateful as a dense forest, and like a tourist from
the State of Maine, who lately passed that way, I felt to exclaim:
Thank the Lord, I smell pitch once more! "
From this region goes most of the lumber used along the road, as
far as Salt Lake City; but over all that interior there is an everincreasing scarcity of good timber. Woods are found only upon the
mountains; the inner plains of the Great Basin are as bare of trees as
if blasted by the breath of a volcano. At Verdi Station, 5,000 feet
above sea-level, we pass the State line and enter California. Crossing
the Truckee, we take an additional locomotive and enter upon the
steepest ascent of the Sierras. The first large curve brings us above




THE PACIFIC SLOPE.


107


Donner Lake, so named in memory of those unfortunate emigrants
from Quincy, Illinois, who here starved and froze and suffered away
the long cold winter of 1846. Next we look down upon Lake Bigler,
and another hour brings us to Summit Station, highest point on the
Central Pacific, 7,042 feet above sea-level, 1,669 miles from Omaha,
and 105 from
Sacramento.
We enter now
upon the western slope, with 'v -b
its steep descent; and with _
the breaks " set
up" a     nd very
little steam, we                  _
still rush along
at a fearful
rate, at one
place running
miles in thirty
minutes, with- _
out an ounce,;
of steam. Forty  miles of           SEVEN THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SEA.
t    y           mi       les of
snow-sheds have been erected along this part of the line at a cost of
a million and a half dollars; to the great assurance of winter passage, but an equal hinderance to enjoyment of the view.
Running out upon a more gentle grade, we pass in rapid succession, Dutch Flat, Little York, You Bet, and Red Dog, all old mining towns, the largest still containing three thousand inhabitants.
All along the road we see mile after mile of flumes running in
every direction down the ridges, and carrying large streams to be
used in hydraulic mining below; and in places pass hundreds of
acres of "old dirt," which has been washed out and abandoned.
All are alert for the view of Cape Horn, the wonder of this route;
but the sight is not good for nervous people. An awful chasm, at
first apparently right before us, and then but a little to the left,
opens directly across the range; and, standing on the steps of the
car, it seems as if the train were rushing headlong into it. The
first view allows the sight 19 pierce a thousand feet, almost straight




108


WESTERN WILDS.


downward to the green bottom, where the trees shrink to mere
shrubs, and the Chinamen working at the lumber seem like pigmies; a little further down the gorge the wagon bridge-hundreds
of feet above the bottom-appears like a faint white band, and still
further the sight is lost in a blue mist. The railroad track is exH                                             ---
CAPE HORN.
cavated along the sides and around the head of this gorge, where,
in aboriginal days, the Indians had not even a foot-path, as the
first descent from the head of the chasm is six hundred feet, nearly
perpendicular. When the road-bed was constructed, the men who
made the first excavation were secured by ropes let down from a
higher point.
The climate changes with every hour's descent.  The red earth,
resinous pines, and yellow grass show that we are on the Pacific
Coast; but the view is wonderfully relieved by the pines, and the
red branches and pale green leaves of the manzanita.  Settlements
thicken; gardens, fields, and orchards appear. Down at last on the
California side of the Sierras, we emerge from the foot-hills upon
c rather level plain dotted with live oaks, with occasionally a cultivated field. Crossing this plain and the American River, we leave
the cars and walk amid the neat squares and well-watered grass
plats of the State capital.
A week in Sacramento taught me one important fact: that Cali



THE PA CIFIC SLOPE.


109


fornia malaria is quite as bad in its way as Wabash malaria, for I
had the unmistakable old-fashioned ague.   The returning miners
who brought East such wonderful accounts of the healthfulness of
California, spent most of their time there in the hills or on the
higher plateaus; for in the low grounds along the larger streams
there is miasma enough. For many miles along their lower course,
the Sacramento and San Joaquin (which the absurd natives pronounce lWahkeen) are bordered by vast marshes and tule lands, which
yield slowly to flood plains, all overflowed in the rainy season. The
days are hot, the nights are cool, the winter and spring very wet,
the summer very dry-why should we not find malaria, if nature's
laws are uniform?   But a little further away from the streams, the
dry air of California, slightly tempered by ocean winds, gives assurance of health.
I next sought the rural districts, crossing the Sacramento into
Yolo County, and following the raised track of the California Central Railroad as my best passage through the tule lands.  Tule is
the Spanish or Indian name of a coarse reed which covers the
entire tract, green during winter and spring, but now dry as tinder, and furnishing fuel for extended fires. Far down among the
reeds, which often exceeded ten feet in height, I saw cattle hunting
for scattered clumps of grass, which still had a little shade of green
in the moisture preserved by the tules.  Beyond this tract, the road
emerges into a vast plain, overflowed for many miles out in winter,
but now dry and dusty, and covered with coarse grass of a yellowish brown color, which looks, to the Eastern eye, as if every particle of nutriment were burnt out of it.
At Davisville, fifteen miles from Sacramento, I remained a few
days to investigate the fruit farms and silk culture. A large field
had been planted in mulberry trees; a factory large enough to employ a hundred hands was being erected, and the experiment is now
in active and favorable operation.  Sericulture will some day constitute one of the leading interests of California, as capable men
are entering upon it at several places, and there can scarcely be
a doubt that the climate and soil are well adapted thereto. The
want of cheap labor has been the great hinderance; and this is
supplied by the Chinese, who will probably become silk manufacturers here as at home. Vineyards extended in all directions. The
picking season was over, but there were still grapes enough on the
vines to furnish a plentiful repast.  Many thousand bunches had
dried upon the stem, and tasted more like raisins than grapes, un



110


WESTERN WILDS.


less of the acid Sonoma variety; these had a strong fiery taste.
Every known species, from the extreme north to the tropics, seems
to find here a second native country, as it were, where it attains to
great size and fineness of flavor.
Every district in California produces its own peculiar wine, but
all the lighter kinds go by the general name of Sonoma White,"
the manufacture having begun. at Sonoma.    It has been claimed
that the use of light wines lessens the demand for strong liquors.
It certainly has not produced that effect in California. While the
Eastern tourist is eager for his draught of ice-cooled Sonoma, the
old Californian invariably calls for whisky. Perhaps it is because
they used whisky so long before wine became plenty.   On every
road from the larger towns is a series of hotels, with bar attachment, usually known as the One-mile House, the Two-mile House,
etc.; and a man's capacity (in other words the length of time he
has been in California) is usually guaged by the number he can
patronize on his way to and from town. The "pilgrim" often falls
before he reaches town. The man who has been here a few years
gets in with his team, disposes of his load, and usually has to spend
the night at the One- or Two-mile House. But the old Californian
drinks at every place on his way in, transacts business with a clear
head, reverses the drinking process at every place going out, even
to the Ten-mile House, and gets home in good condition to do his
evening's work and enjoy himself in the bosom of his family.
Besides figs and grapes there is very little fruit grown in the
main valley; but in all the little mountain vales, both in the Coast
Range and Sierras, is produced almost every fruit of the temperate
and tropical climes.  Apples are not so finely flavored as in the
East, and pears are large and coarse; but peaches are better, and
plums, damsons, and nectarines perfectly delicious.  It is in grapes,
however, that California particularly excels.
From  Davisville I traveled up Putah Creek 'all day through a
rich level country, covered now with the rich haze of autumn, the
air seeming full of red dust and smoke; passed occasionally clumps
of trees and very inferior looking farm-houses, seldom painted or
well-finished; traversed mile after mile of continuous wheat fields,
with stubble still bright though the crop was harvested four months
ago, and found the same dry, dusty, grassless look over the whole
landscape. The entire valley is devoted to the growth of wheat
and barley, with the exception of occasional stock-ranches which
also appear devoid of life at this season, with the same old look,




TILE PACIFIC SLOPE.


ill


and half-Southern, half-Spanish air of shiftlessness. The, road runs
unfenced through a constant succession of wheat fields, whence the
grain had been cut late in May; and the prevailing impression was
of drought. There were fields parched and cracked open, dust in
great heaps among the dried vegetation, grass withered and burnt,
while the largest creeks were entirely dried up or shrunk to mere
rivulets, pursuing their sluggish and doubtful course away down at
the bottom of deep gulches, which in winter and spring are filled
by immense torrents. At night the horizon was lighted up by fires
raging in the stubble on the high lands, or among the tWles lower
down, and by day the sun was obscured, and distant objects hidden
by the smoke or light haze, which corresponds to our eastern Indian
summer, and is here the immediate precursor of the first rain.
Having since visited California at other seasons, I find it to posssess an almost aggravating regularity of climate. To begin with
the year, January is the month when the heaviest rains are passed,
and the ground is settling for the spring growth. Soon this -valley
is beautiful indeed.  Strawberries and other early fruits are early
in market, the plains are of a rich green, plowing is pushed forward
with vigor, wheat is sown, and springs quickly into growing life.
In March the rainy season appears to come again, though, generally,
the "later rain' is light. Thence the showers grow slowly less and
less frequent till some time in May. The wheat is about full grown,
early potatoes begin to appear, and slight signs of drought are manifest. The grass gets ripe, the Spanish oats (wild) begin to turn
yellow, and early in June the wheat is harvested.
It lies or stands in shocks on the ground, to be threshed out at
will; for no rain need now be apprehended. The surface begins to
show signs of extreme drought; by the middle of July the freshets
are all past and the marshes dried up; the ground cracks open in
long fissures, into which the grass seeds fall and are preserved to
another growing season. As summer advances all the minor vegetation loses its green; the grass, dead ripe, stands cured to a bright
yellow, varied in places by a dirty brown; creation assumes a gray
and dusty color, and only the purple fig leaves and faint green of
of those trees which have a deeper root relieve the general aspect
of barrenness. On the slopes of the Sierras, the red dust lies six
inches in depth, and the prospect is brightened only by occasional
patches of verdure along the mountain streams, and the pale-green
oval leaves of the manzanita.
Still the heavens remain clear.  Then one may see through the




112


WESTERN WILDS.


valley of the Sacramento great stacks of wheat in sacks, standing
in the open fields till a convenient time arrives for hauling it away,
and threshing-machines running in the open air with no fear of rain.
The stubble of the old fields retains its brightness, and the long dry
autumn of California is fairly inaugurated. The marshes become
CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL REPORT.
beds of dust, which is blown up in stifling clouds; the mirage appears upon the plain in deceptive floods of what the Mexicans call
"lying waters;" the tules become dry as tinder, and at night the Sacramento is lighted for miles by the fires that rage over the same
area where, eight months before, a steamboat could ply at ease. The
yellow grass is eaten to the ground, and the herds are driven far
up the mountains; the dust, which has become insufferable in the
roads, seems to blow away and on to the fields; the r ads are often
bare and dry, hardened like sunburnt brick, and the depressions
in the fields knee-deep in dust. The sky becomes obscured; the
sun rises red and fiery, and disappears about 4 P. M., in a bank of
haze. People prepare for winter by nailing a board here and there
on an apology for a barn, and hauling away any wheat that remains
in the field.  After a few preliminary showers, the "early rain"
comes in force; torrents descend upon beds of dust, and the plain
becomes a sea of thin mud. Then all the mountain gulches are
swollen with muddy red water; the Sacramento spreads for miles
over the tule lands, and steamers again ply over what was a baked
plain three months before. In a few weeks the worst is passed, and
the growing season begins again. Moral: To enjoy California, come
in the first half of the year. From June till November it is too
dry for comfort; from that till the middle of January too muddy.




THE PACIFIC SLOPE.


113


I have only described the climate of the interior-that series of
broad plains bordering the San Joaquin and Sacramento, and extending to the foot-hills of the Coast Range on the west and the
Sierras on the east, which includes three-fourths of agricultural
California. Taken as a whole, however, the State has three grand
divisions of climate.  First is the coast climate; in that narrow
strip.between the Coast Range and the ocean, the fields are watered
nightly by the ocean fogs, and are green from January to December.
Hence their leading industry-expressed in the local phrase-" the
cow counties." Next is the interior climate, above described. The
region bordering the bay of San Francisco enjoys a mixture of two
climates. The third might be called the mountain-valley climate.
From the Sierras some forty little valleys open westward; down
each one flows a bright stream, affluent of the San Joaquin or Sacramento, and each has a different climate, from Sonora, where figs
ripen, and strawberries grow in February, to Yreka, where snow
sometimes lies for three months. Our artist has faithfully depicted
the average Californian's description of the products of his State. The
reader may discount the picture opposite by a very large per cent.
Next I went to San Francisco, by way of Vallejo, taking steamer
thence to the city. The rainy season had set in, and I awoke next
morning to a view, from my room far up the hill, of a city half hidden
in mist, from which spires and cupolas projected like sharp rocks above
a swelling flood. Three days of rain, and then the city put on its
" winter" look. The citizens boast of their winters and apologize for
their summers; and well they may. August is the coldest (to the
feelings) and September the warmest month in the year! One can feel
no difference in temperature between January and June; furs are
worn from July 1st till late in August, then left off till near Christmas again. The latter part of the winter is singularly mild and equable-about as May in the latitude of Philadelphia. The genesis of
these strange contradictions is in the coast winds. In July and
August they set hard and full upon the coast, bringing with them a
dense fog that lowers the temperature till an overcoat is a necessity.
In September comes a calm, while there is still heat enough in the
summer sun to warm the air; later comes the softer wind from the
south-west. But this south-west wind also drives in the rain clouds
upon the interior plains; so while San Francisco has her nicest
weather, the interior has its rainy season. The clouds thus driven
north from the South Pacific drop but scant moisture on Southern
California; the rain-fall at Fort Yuma rarely exceeds two inches per
8




114


WESTERN WILDS.


year. Northward they are caught by the higher mountains, and the
rain-fall increases; till at last, entangled amid the sub-ranges of Oregon, they shower almost constantly from October till May.
I like San Francisco for its variety. If one don't enjoy staid
American society, there are French, Italian, and Spanish quarters,
and not far off Kanakas, and ever-present Chinese. Society is in a
transition state. This is a land of the beggar and the prince.. The
oppressive land monopoly which was fixed upon California by Mexican policy, the wonderful fluctuations in mining property, and the
daring speculations of its business men, have given over the wealth to
a few hands. There seems to be no well defined middle class. Public
taste inclines to the showy; for wealth and fashion naturally outran
culture in a community which, in twenty years, rose like another
Venice, from the salt marsh and sand-hill to unmeasured opulence.
The city is strangely picturesque and interesting. On the west side
of the bay and facing the east, the business blocks cover the flat
along the water front and extend a little way up the slope; thence the
residences and public buildings continue to rise in terraces, to the very
summit of the ridge-a spur of Monte Diablo. With this slope and
its sandy soil, it is of necessity clean and free from malaria. The
ocean fogs are bracing to some constitutions, death to others. No
man can reason beforehand as to how they will affect him; they refuse
to follow a priori rules. The first San Francisco was built almost
entirely of wood, and vanished one day in a sweeping fire. The
second was built in a rather fragile manner with more solid materials;
the frequent fires finally cured the first fault, and the earthquakes frightened them out of the second. In one year the city had eleven " shakes."
The Chinese, seen in every part of California, are never out of sight
in the city, of which they constitute one-sixth of the population. Some
twenty squares along Dupont Street are given up to them, the locality
appropriately known as " Barbary Coast."  We found it settled so
thickly that it seems scarcely possible human beings could exist so, and
could scarcely repress a feeling of fear as we plunged into the dark
alleys lined by little cubby-holes, and alive with yellow women. But
our guide assures us we are always safe here; " though," he adds, " I
can't give you any such promise two squares from here, among the
whites."  This suggests the " hoodlum," or young rough, which San
Francisco has in fearful abundance.
Of course my resident friends took me to the Chinese Theater,
where we witnessed part of a play representing some marvelous incidents in the career of Rip Sah, or some other old humbug, whose


4




THE PACIFIC SLOPE.


115


name and monarchy were great in China about sixty thousand years
since. I may not have the date quite correct, as Celestial history consists of the annals of a series of dynasties, evolving civilization and
philosophy through successive eras of such magnitude that a variation


BARBARY COAST," SAN FRANCISCO.
of twenty thousand years, more or less, is regarded as a trifling discrepancy. The musicians sit upon the stage directly behind the actors,
who enter and retire always by the wings; and the dying groans of
Rip Sah, who expires in a fit just after having beheaded fifty thousand
prisoners, are drowned by the monotonous droning of something like a
tin drum and two three-stringed instruments, about as musical as a hog
with his nose under a gate, but not half as expressive.




116


WESTERN WILDS.


The California Chinese (and I include in this class all in the Far
Weet,) seem to me to have the coldest, most gloomy and repellant
religion, the most chilling philosophy, of any race in the world.
There is but one redeeming feature in the case; they are all in a
skeptical state, and do not more than. half believe their own faith. I
once witnessed in Sacramento their great" devil-drive," which includes
nearly all the ceremonies of their religion. At least four thousand
Chinese were present; and with the blowing of horns, beating gongs,
talking and yelling, by Mongolian courtesy called singing, and openair theaters and bands, they made the evening lively. Nearly all the
Chinese in America are orthodox Buddhists, who reason the matter
thus: "If God good, why pray?  Tend to the devil." Hence this
ceremony of driving out the latter.
We found the devil "out in the cold "-a hideous black figure,
easily recognized as the evil one, set upon a pedestal just outside the
door. Within were two enormous "Joshes," ten feet high, one in
each corner, and over them a shelf filled with little household gods,
two feet qr so in length; while behind the altar the Buddhist priests
and attendant boys were going through a ceremony very similar to
High Mass. The Buddhists, like the Mormons, believe in a regular
gradation of gods, rising one above another to the great head god,
whom the Mormons call Eloheim, and the Chinese " Top-side Josh."
Outside, booths with open front were erected, jn which various plays
were being performed in choice Tartar, the view free to the crowd.
This continued till midnight, when a general chorus of priests and
bands announced the close of the festival (?) and a torch was applied
to the devil. The figure, which proved to be full of fire-crackers,
"went off" in brilliant style till nothing was left apparently but the
hideous head and back-bone; these then shot upward like a huge
Roman candle, leaving a trail of blue fire, and exploded high in the
air with a loud report, followed by a shower of sparks and insufferable
stench. And that was supposed to drive the devil away for a year!
Turning away with a feeling of relief that the devil was gone at last,
I encountered Ah Ching, our Mongolian laundryman, at the Pacific
Hotel, who spoke some English, and had an intellect that was "not to
be sneezed at," of whom I sought information, and received it thus:
"Hallo, John, do you believe in him?"
Oh, velley, Melica man, me believe him."
"All Chinamen believe in him?"
"Oh, China like Melica man. Some believe him; sahvey; some
tink him all gosh damn." And I felt that I was answered.




CHAPTER VIII.


TWO YEARS OF CHANGE,
FROM the Golden Gate I returned to Utah and trouble. I had often
dealt theoretically with the Mormon courts. I was now to have practical experience of their beautiful uncertainty.
Corinne, where I had my legal residence, an exclusively Gentile
town, had sprung up suddenly in the center of an old Mormon county.
The county judge was one Samuel Smith, husband of six wives, two of
whom were his own brother's daughters, sealed to him by Brigham
Young, with full knowledge of that relationship. As editor of the
only Gentile paper in Utah, I had occasionally commented on this
fact with considerable severity; nevertheless, when summoned to his
court as party to a civil suit, I attended with the innate American confidence that every body is safe in the shadow of a court-house.
The trial was over, and I was just stepping off the court-house portico, when I received a thundering whack in the back of the head
which sent me face forward upon the gravel. There was a rush, a
sound of curses, and I felt, first a shower of blows upon the head and
shoulders, and then one or more persons walking over me with heavy
boots. I distinctly heard bones snap somewhere; then there was a
void, and next my friends were picking me up and taking stock generally of my condition. My left collar-bone was broken in two places,
one of my ribs loosened, my temple badly cut, and about two inches
of my scalp torn off, besides being badly hurt myself. We were but
nine Gentiles in a Mormon town of twelve hundred people, so there
was nothing to be done but haul me over to Corinne, where my wounds
were dressed. In one week I was walking about town in pretty good
condition, and just a month from the attack was discharged cured, and
able to travel.
Wonderful as this recovery seems, it is nothing to what I have
known to occur in the pure air of the Rocky Mountains. A blacksmith living in Montana, located on the stage-road a hundred miles
from the nearest surgeon, had his knee shattered by a pistol-shot. '-He
sharpened two bowie-knives, strapped the leg over a bench, and amputated it half way between the knee and hip-joint, taking up the
(117)




118


WESTERN WILDS.


arteries with his own hands, and searing them with irons heated by
himself in the forge. His wound healed by what plysicians call "the
first intention," and he still lives, to walk pretty well upon a wooden
leg, and be known throughout the mountains as " Nervy Bill."
I saw a man in Stockton, California, who had been "bodaciously
chawed up," to use his own language, by a grizzly bear. In the


"' BODACIOUSLY CIIAWED UP."


death-hug he had an arm and leg broken, and all the flesh torn from
his'forehead and crown, after which he lay two days and nights in the
calnon before being found. Yet he lived, in good health, and not badly
disfigured.  Chief-Justice Brookings, late of the Supreme Court of




TWO YEARS OF CHANGE.


119


Dakota, broke through the ice in the Big Sioux River, and was held
fast for twenty-four hours, his legs crushed by the ice and chilled by
the cold water. Both limbs were amputated; but he enjoys good
health, walks upon corks, and to use the language of an admiring constituent " is able to stump 'round an' do a heap o' devilment." It's
the physical condition at the time that does it. Debauchees have died
from the scratch of a rusty nail; mountaineers have survived a dozen
gaping wounds, any one of which, by sound medical reasoning, should
have killed them.
My principal assailant proved to be the son of Judge Smith. He
was arrested by the Mormon authorities and fined five dollars. It is
well known in Utah that, in such cases, the fine is seldom paid. Two
years afterwards, WR. R. Keithley, a lawyer in Salt Lake City, struck
a Mormon editor two blows with a light cane, doing no particular
damage. Ile was taken before the Mormon justice, fined a hundred
dollars, and put under bonds of four hundred to keep the peace.
That was about the percentage of difference in those days between
justice to the Saint and the Gentile. It is different now-thanks to
Ulysses Grant and Judge McKean. But as for me, I can safely swear
that I have a little more than balanced the account with the Mormons. I can lay my hand on my heart and say that they don't owe
me a cent.
After a winter visit to the East, I returned to Utah early in 1870,
eager to be fighting the old battles again. There had been great
changes. The first reaction, following the completion of. the Union
Pacific Railroad, was past, and the mountains were lively again.
Rich silver veins had been opened in the Wasatch, and miners by
hundreds were pouring in. Better than all, U. S. Grant was at the
helm, and had sent men to represent the government in Utah.' His
civil career has been fiercely criticised, but his was the first administration that accomplished any good for Utah. No more bowing to
Brigham in the Gentile programme. No more of Federal officials
dancing with his "wives," and taking an invitation to his house as
a high honor. No more asking his gracious permission to remain in
Utah; and especially no negligence in looking after Gentile interests.
Every day brought tidings of rich discoveries in the mountains.
When I visited the Sevier district in 1869, there was not a mining
shaft fifty feet deep, and not more than a thousand non-Mormons in
Utah; by the close of 1870, the mining population increased to
4,000, and it was soon established, beyond doubt, that Utah was a
rich mining country. In one month the Walker Brothers shipped




120


WESTERN WILDS.


4,000 tons of ore. The early history of the Emma Mine now reads
like a romance. Mr. J. B. Woodman had never wavered in his faith
that the hill north of Little Cottonwood Canion contained a rich deposit. He had followed a narrow    vein till his means were exhausted, without making a "strike."  His faith was infectious, and
one or two grocers in Salt Lake City furnished him on credit a
hundred pounds of flour and some meant, which he and his partners
carried up the canion, wading through the snow. Before that provision was exhausted, they came upon the upper part of the deposit,
since known as the Emma Mine. In a month thereafter the most
sanguine spoke of it as worth $40,000, whereat the many laughed.
Every foot of additional development showed the ore-body to be
greater, and the property was successively sold and stocked at higher
prices. In September, 1872, after it had been sold in London, a
gentleman familiar with the workings of the mine presented the following exhibit:
Depth of workings...                        230 feet
Breadth of workings.                        6 to 40 "
Length of workings....... 475 "
Cubic feet excavated (about)..               500,000
Tons of ore extracted...                 30,000
Tons of waste and third-class ore..           15,000
Value of ore......$2,500,000
So small had been the expenses of working, on account of the loose
nature of the ore, that $2,200,000 of this had been clear profit. The
mine might honestly have been sold for $2,000,000. It was stocked
at $5,000,000. The result was a failure to pay dividends on such a
capital, a cessation of working, caving in of the mine, a disgraceful
lawsuit, and an international scandal.. The nation at large has little
to ease the smart. In Utah we have one consolation: all the honest
work on the mine was done by Gentile residents; all the fraud was
perpetrated by men who live outside of Utah, some of them our
worst enemies. But we have suffered most of the ill effects. A
cloud was thrown upon Utah mines which delayed our progress for
two years.
In May I went to Washington City, as agent for the Corinne Gentiles, and remained two months and a half. The next December and
January I also spent in Washington on the same mission. We were
without representation in any legislative body, and our only recourse
was to have an agent at Washington, who, besides being unofficial in
character, had the constant hostility of the Mormon delegate in the




TWVO YEARS OF CHANGE.


121


House of Representatives.  It was then I learned the miseries of a
lobbyist. Then I knew what it was to wait wearily on legislative action; to besiege the doors of congressmen and ask favors I could
not return, and cool my heels in the ante-chambers of official greatness. It was poison to the soul of a mountaineer. Of all the varied
employments I have taken a hand at, I look back with the least satisfaction upon this Washington experience. I do not wonder that lobbyists are suspected of monstrous sins and multitudinous petty crimes.
Surely one who should follow the business long would be mean enough
for any thing.
In midsummer I attended the remarkable debate in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City,           _
have b een expected,
each party claim in the               F  S      A
victor    for its ow               ra
champion. It did notealthy to have three           ives while
interest me das it might                              lt
have done two    eand a fat oe fr w     r.
before; for I had been ''
long enough in Utah to
know  that polygamy
was far from being the
worst evil of M     "ormonism. To its victims it
is doubtless a horrible
institutionbt to the}
on-looking Gentile it
partakes more of the
nature of a comedy.
As for instance, when it
is gravely announced by
some old frog of an
elder, that " a man can 't
git no exaltation in the   MORMON WIVES FOR SUMMEI1 AND WlNT]ER.
celestial world 'thout he's gone into plurality." Or when one learns
that it is the style among the wealthy to have three wives; while
your true saintly epicure, if unable to afford three, has at least "a
lean wife for summer and a fat one for winter."




122


WESTERN WILbS.


But occasionally comedy and tragedy are united, as in the case
of Bishop Smith, married to two of his cousins and two of his
nieces; or in that of Elder Allsop, who has a mother and daughter
for wives, both mothers of his children, the whole brood living
together in a little cabin. In the southern part of Utah may be
seen two towns without parallels in America-Taylorsville and
Winnville.  Two worthy Mormon patriarchs, Elder Taylor and
Elder-Winn, have each taken numerous "wives," and each of their
sons has done the same. The result is two villages, in one of which
all the inhabitants are Taylors, and in the other all Winns. The
Taylors have been the better Saints, and outnumber the others two
to one, which is very disheartening to the Winns. Old man Winn
is reported to have said, to an official who visited him not long ago,
that life to him was but a weary desert, and at times he felt like
fainting by the way-side.  At other times he declared that never
more would he go through the Endowment House and take another
young wife, "for that old Taylor can just naturally raise two children to my one."
After six weeks' travel in the mines, and a winter's work for
Gentile interests, the opening months of 1871 found me again a
traveler. This time I came eastward, and, after a brief rest, made
a tour of the Missouri Valley. I had been three years in the Far
West, and before I relate more extensive journeys, perhaps this is
as good a place as any to present a general view of our Territories
and the adjacent States.
First let it be noted that our maps give no idea of the nature of
the country; they do not show the comparative elevation and barrenness.  Here and there on the common maps may be seen the
words "Great American Desert," the assumption being that all the
rest of the region is fertile. The fact is that barrenness is the rule
and fertility the exception; though much of the land that is not
cultivable still furnishes a coarse grass.
Draw a line on longitude 100~ from British America to Texas;
then go 800 miles westward, and draw another from British America
to Mexico, and all the area between these two lines-800 by 1200
miles in extent; or in round numbers a million square miles-is
the "American Desert:" a region of varying mountain, desert, and
rock; of prevailing drought or complete sterility, broken rarely by
fertile valleys; of dead volcanoes and sandy wastes; of excessive
chemicals, rock, gravel, and other inorganic matter. Only the lower
valleys, bordering perennial streams, or more rarely some plateau




TWO YEARS OF CHANGE.


123


on which water can be brought from the mountains for irrigation, or
still more rarely a green plat in some corner of the mountains where
there is an unusual amount of rain, or percolation of moisture from
above, constitute the cultivable lands; all the rest is rugged mountain, rocky flat, gravel bed, barren ridge scantily clothed with sagebrush, greasewood or bunch-grass, or complete desert-the last covering at least one-third of the entire region.
The reasons for.this sterility are many: Elevation and consequent
cold; drought caused by the trend of the bordering mountains and
direction of the prevailing winds; rock in all forms, and such destructive chemicals as salt and alkali. Wyoming contains 98,000
square miles, and not a foot of land less than 4,000 feet high. Colorado has about the average elevation of Wyoming, Denver being
nearly on the level of Cheyenne. Manifestly the high plains of these
two Territories can never be of value except for grazing. Utah, as
reduced, contains over 60,000 square miles; but, except possibly a
few of the sunken deserts of the south, the lowest valley is higher
than the average summit of the Alleghany Mountains, the surface of
the Salt Lake being 4,250 feet above the sea.
Hundreds of little valleys in the Rocky Mountains, beautiful as
the Vale of Rasselas from May till October, rich in grass and game,
are yet useless to the farmer; grain can not be made to grow in
them by any art of the husbandman.   In Parley's Park, Hcber C.
Kilball tried for seven years to raise wheat; it was invariably "cut
off in the flower" by the September frosts. At Soda Springs, Idaho,
6,500 feet above sea-level, the "Morrisite" Mormons tried farming
for years; but only succeeded with rye and potatoes, which will mature in a three-months' summer. On all the higher plains of Wyoming, frost may be looked for with certainty every month in the
year.  At the Navajo farms-in Arizona-I have seen icicles six
inches long on the rocks, only 300 feet above the fields, on the 18th
of June; and, in 1871, when the Indians had, with great labor,
brought forward a crop of corn, and planted orchards, on the night
of May 31st a storm of sleet froze every plant and tree solid to the
ground. Nor are these such difficulties as can be overcome by industry; we must wait till nature flattens out the country and brings
it down into the region of warm air and abundant moisture.
If all the low lands were fertile, there would still be a large area
for agriculture; but they are far more barren than the mountains,
except those tracts lying immediately at the base of the ranges, or in
low valleys along some perennial stream. Every-where in the larger




124


WESTERN WILDS.


basins the land at a distance from the mountains is a complete desert,
generally whitened by alkali. For days of travel the face of nature
is a dirty white, and in dry weather an acrid and irritating dust
powders the traveler until all races are of one hue. In every Territory are found such tracts, known by suggestive names: The Jornada
del Muerto, or "Journey of the Dead," in New Mexico; the Salt
Desert, west of Great Salt Lake, covering 5,000 square miles; the
Great Nevada Desert, 25,000 square miles of utter desolation; the
White Desert, Red Desert, Mohave Desert, Skull Valley, Death Valley, the Ilala Pais of the Spaniard and the Mlauvaises Terres of the
French voyageur.  Where the stage route crosses such a tract, the
animals labor through a cloud of dust, and the coach drags heavily;
the wheels " cry" as they grind in the sand and soda, and the passengers endure as best they can the irritation to eye and nostril and
the slime formed upon the body by dust and sweat. This penetrating
alkaline powder sifts in at the smallest crevice, and even the clothing
in a valise is often covered by it.
Such are the worst sections of the West. Next above them are the
"grassy plains, though still unfit for agriculture. Of the million square
miles above bounded, at least one-third produces bunch-grass, which
chiefly differs from the verdure of the East in that it never forms a
continuous sod or green sward; it grows in scattered clumps, six or
eight to the square rod, or thicker where the locality is favorable.
One can span a bunch at the roots, but above it spreads; sometimes
several bunches grow so as to form a clump a foot wide. It is never
of a deep green, and for three-quarters of the year is a regular graybrown; hence an Eastern man might ride all day through rich pastures of it, and think himself in a complete desert. It gets its entire
growth in about six weeks, some time between January and July,
according to the locality. It then cures upon the ground, and stands
through the year looking very much like bunches of broom-sedge.
It is as nutritious as ripe oats, the species with a white top, containing
a small black seed, being particularly fattening. With it animals
make journeys of a thousand miles without an ounce of grain; without it, nile-tenths of America between meridians 100~ and 120~ would
be totally worthless.
Probably the most disappointing feature in Rocky Mountain scenery,
to all new-comers, is the absence of a green landscape; for with rare
exceptions the traveler's eye does not rest in summer upon an unvarying carpet of green as in the East. The bunch-grass is a pale green,
or quite gray or yellow; the small sage-brush is white, and the large




TWO YEARS OF CHANGE.


125


variety blue; the greasewood is a dirty white, and the earth and rocks
white, yellow or red; the general result is a neutral gray, which
seems to shroud all creation in sober tints.  One may ridle all day
through good bunch-grass pasture and his horse be walking in sand
all tie time; or through a tolerably rich country and never see an
acre of that lively emerald which is the charm of an Ohio landscape.
A pla' of green sward is a rare sight in the Rocky Mountains; but
eastward, on the high plains, other grasses appear, changing by slow
degrees to the heavy verdure of the Missouri Valley.
Last, and least in extent, are the arable tracts, which are all the
more fertile from receiving the wash of the high lands; they are in
fact the most fertile in the world. Utah alone contains some fifty
valleys, of every width from one mile to fifteen; in them the soil needs
only water to produce thirty and sixty and a hundred-fold. But
between one such valley and the next, intervene from five to fifty
miles of rocky ridges, gravel plains or alkali beds, the first two perhaps yielding bunch grass, the last a waste. In Nevada the proportion of good land is much less; in Wyoming least of all, though that
Territory has immense tracts of good grazing land. Up to 5,000 feet
above the sea ali the fruits and grains of the temperate zones are
produced in abundance, above that the products lessen rapidly. In a
few places wheat can be grown at or above the 6,000 foot level; rye
and oats 2,000 feet higher, and near Central City, Colorado, I have
seen heavy crops of potatoes produced at 9,000 feet above the sea.
Even the highest parks, where the snow is six feet deep in winter, and
does not melt away till the middle of May, often produce heavy crops
of grass; but neither fruit nor grain can be grown there.
The w\ant of water hinders settlement in many places where the
land is fertile. If every drop in Utah were utilized, it would not
irrigate one-tenth of the Territory. If the Ohio River were turned
into the northwest corner of the Great Basin, not a drop of it would
ever reach the Colorado above ground; the hot sun, dry air, gravel
beds and alkali plains would absorb 'it all. Southward this difficulty
steadily increases; the water is scantier while more is needed. In the
Rio Grande Valley a given area requires from two to three times as
much water as in the Platte Valley. The Mormons in Arizona put five
times as much water on an acre as the Mormnons in Idaho. The traveler among the mountains of the Great Basin finds in the higher
cafnons hundreds of streams of which not one survives to reach the
valley; scores of "rivers" are marked upon the maps, which do not
contain a drop of water after the first of June. South of latitude 370




126


WVESTERN WILDS.


or 38~, even the attempt to secure a reservoir for the summer irrigation fails; when the water above the dam has risen two or three
feet, it seeks an underground course through the porous soil, and
when most needed the aguada is dry. In Arizona I found evidences
that the old race (Aztec or Toltec?) had tried to remedy this by puddling" the bottom of the aguada, in places even laying it with bricks
made of most tenacious clay; but even they were in time compelled to
abandon most of the valleys by the ever-increasing drought.
A Western man may be allowed a smile at the suggestion of President Grant, that all the streams issuing eastward from the Rocky Mountains might be utilized by a great National work, so as to irrigate all
the plains. Such a work would cost hundreds of millions, while every
drop of water in all those streams would not irrigate one-tenth of the
vast slope extending three hundred miles eastward from the mountains.
Many suggestions are made as to new methods of cultivation to meet
the difficulties. Drought might possibly be overcome, but I see not
how rocky flats, gravel-beds and plains of sand and alkali can ever be
made productive. If there is a total change in the climate, corresponding changes in the land will of course follow in due time; but
that does not seem to me imminent. To sum up: At least nine-tenths
of America between longitude 100~ and 120~ seem to me irredeemable
(for agriculture) by any art now known to man.
Important political consequences follow. Such a country can never
sustain a dense population. The isolated trading town or mining
hamlet, with perhaps half a dozen cities of 50,000 people, and detached
farming settlements, will occupy a very small portion of the whole
area; all the rest will be the range of the nomadic hunter or herdsman. The limit of rapid settlement, (unless from a mining excitement,) is already reached; the phenomena of swiftly growing States
like Iowa and Illinois will never be witnessed again in this country.
None of the Territories, except possibly Dakota, is increasing in population as fast as are the States. Utah, for instance, has been settled
thirty years by a race whose constant boast is their prolificacy; it has
barely 100,000 people. This, the most loudly blowed and persistently
advertised of the whole sisterhood, has been knocking for admission
into the Union since 1849; yet it has but one-tenth the population of
New York City, two-fifths that of Cincinnati, and nothing like the
wealth or intelligence of a first-class county in Ohio. In the pro'posed State one Mormon would have a power in the United States
Senate equal to that of thirty Christians in Ohio, or fifty in New
York. In Nevada the inequality is far worse, though that State has




TWO YEARS OF CHANGE.


127


wealth and intelligence to aid us. Wyoming can not sustain a population equal to that of Rhode Island; Idaho is scarcely more fertile;
the child is not born that will live to see half a million people
resident in the Great Basin. Colorado, has a population nearly equal
to that of Utah; New Mexico has a population equal perhaps to that
it had three hundred years ago.
It is evident that our form of government must be modified for
such communities. Ideal civil systems may furnish amusement for
scholars; but a people can only use such a goverment as it has grown
to. That "lynch law" should largely prevail all over the West, was
as natural, nay, as imperative, as that common and statute law should
prevail in New England. Wyoming, for instance, contains 98,000
square miles, and less than 20,000 people; an area more than twice the
size of Pennsylvania, with half the population of an average county! 1
Along the Pacific Railway, in the southern part of the Territory, are
a few trading towns; all the rest is grassy plains, mountain and desert,
traversed only by mining, wooding, hunting or herding parties. A
criminal can take a horse from any town and be in thy trackless wilderness in two hours. When arrested according to statute a posse must
convey him perhaps hundreds of miles, to the nearest jail, and all the
witnesses must take the same trip three or four times. Perhaps before
final trial there is a mining " stampede," or an Indian war, and all the
witnesses leave. It would never do. Justice must be brought home
to every little hamlet, and so the Themis of the Rocky Mountains is a
wild huntress. The few inhabitants must act promptly before the
criminal has time to escape; if it is rape, arson, murder or an aggravated case of horse-stealing, he dies; if a minor offense, a severe cowhiding suffices. Who shall blame them? Justice must be administered,
or no man's life is safe an hour. It is charged that they sometimes
make mistakes. I have not heard that the regular courts are infallible.
The Territories will soon present an awkward question. It will
never do to admit any more " rotten-borough" States; it would demoralize the Senate, and destroy all decent respect for the Federal
system. We have already gone dangerously near to that consummation. In certain contingencies one-fifth of the people could elect a
President against the united voice of the four-fifths. And yet the
territorial condition is anomalous, and to some extent unrepublican.
A great reform would be to allow them to choose all their executive
officers; the President to appoint only such officias as attend to
United States business, Utah might be annexed entire to Nevada;
the two would then make a State with population enough for one




128


WESTERN WILDS.


Representative in Congress-this to be done after Brigham Young
dies, and the Mormon Church ceases to rule.  The other Territories
might be given more self-government, without the gross injustice of
making them States, which is almost as great a wrong to them as
to the older States.  It is self-evident that an alpine region like
Wyoming, needs a totally different government from that of a level
State like Illinois. Perhaps the cantonal system might be the best, as
far as it gives each little valley local self-government.
The present system is an affliction to the pioneers.  Had not Utah
stood in the way as a possible danger, it would have been remedied
ere this. The demand for good appointees from the President is almost futile.  The sad fact is: Government can not afbrd good men
in office in most of the Territories; the salaries are so much less than
they can make at any legitimate business.  And worse still, when
they try to do their duty they are almost certain to be removed before they learn how.  An Eastern man is worth very little his first
year or two in any Territory.  The official, if honest, is exposed to a
constant pressure^,from those ruled over, and a constant war on the
President to have him removed.  If he had no care but doing his
duty, he would still have trouble enough; but efficiency and duty are
no dependence upon the favor of the administration; * and while the
official in the Territory is harassed by complaints, by a salary insufficient for himself and family, by the damning criticisms or equally
damning overpraise of the local press, he is more and more disquieted
by notes from his friends at Washington, where the fiat of Executive
wrath hangs daily over his official head, like the ever-trembling
sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair. There are men in
every territorial capital who turn uneasily upon their beds from
some dark hint in the evening paper, and whose matin slumbers are
disquieted by anxiety for the morning paper, to see 1" the latest from
Washington." Let certain members and senators die, or resign, or
be defeated, or differ with the President on some pet scheme, and
away their heads would go like pins from the alley; and the more
they had done their duty the more they might expect decapitation.
Hear, then, my conclusion of the whole matter: the system should be
completely reorganized, so as to give the Territories self-government,
and allow their delegates in the House to vote as well as talk; then
they should so remain, to be hunting and roving ground for the rest of
the nation till climate and soil change, or some other cause shall have
made them rich and populous.
*Written previous to March 4, 1877.




CHAPTER IX.


THE MISSOURI VALLEY.
AT noon of a scorching day, our party landed from a Missouri Pacific train in Kansas City-a modern Rome built on seventeen hills
instead of seven. Its citizens have ambitious hopes equal to those of
ancient Romans, but for commerce instead of war. Real estate is set
on edge in Kansas City; so it logically follows there is twice the profit
in it. So the citizens would seem to judge, from the prices they ask
for lots.  A new-comer, looking for an investment, was pointed to a
cone-shaped tract by the owner who was willing to sell.
"But is n't it too steep and rough?" he asked.
"Just what you want," was the reply; " see that lot down there?"pointing to a funnel-shaped plat some hundreds of feet below-" well,
the man that owns that will give you $5,000 for this hill to level up
his lot with."
Next day he was approached by the owner of the lower lot. "Is n't
it too low and wet?" he asked. " Oh, my goodness, no! D'you see
that hill? Well, the owner of that has got to level it, and he'll give
you $1,000 for the privilege of dumping it on this lot."  The "pilgrim" did not invest.
This is the metropolis of western Missouri and eastern Kansas, and
adds immensely to the wealth and population of Jackson County-the
"Land of Zion," according to the revelations of Joe Smith. Hither
in the spring of 1831, came the Mormon Prophet and followers, located the New Jerusalem at Independence, and prophesied a greater
glory than earth had ever known. They notified the citizens that it
was idle for them to open farms or build houses; they were standing
in the way of the Lord, who would sweep the land with destruction.
But the Gentiles saw the matter in a different light; they gathered
their forces, and after a sharp fight, in which two were killed and
many hurt, drove the Saints across the Missouri into Clay County.
Jackson now contains a population equal to that of Utah, and five
times as much wealth. It is indeed a goodly land. Prairie and grove
alternate in pleasing variety; every commanding knoll is the site of a
neat hamlet, every little grove contains a tasteful farm-house, while the
9                                             (19)




130


WES TERN WTILDS.


open prairie is rich in all the fruits and grains of this clime. The
Saints made a good selection for Zion. Could they have held it, they
would doubtless have prospered as have the Gentiles; but the Prophet
proposed, and the Missourians disposed, and things are as they are.
Thence we crossed the Kaw into Kansas, and in a two hours' ride
up the heavily wooded valley of that stream reached Lawrence, the
Athens of the Missouri valley, a town rich in historic interest and
pleasant to dwell in. In the summer of 1849, a party of gold-hunters
camped for the night near the junction of the Kaw and Wakarusa,
where the level prairie of the lower valley begins to yield to high
ridges and rolling plains. They were enchanted with the beauty of
the spot, and on their return from California organized a company in
Massachusetts; again sought this spot, and founded Lawrence, a lone
settlement of "Free-State men," forty miles from the slave border.
The city has already an ancient and a modern history, a mythical and
a heroic age. In its first three years it suffered four regular invasions
from Missouri.  In March, 1855, the "border ruffians" came, and
made a population of nine hundred and sixty-two appear to cast a vote
of a thousand and thirty-four. In November, 1856, occurred the
"1 Wakarusa WVar; " the town was regularly besieged, and several men
killed. May 21, 1856, Sheriff Jones " executed the writ" of Judge
Lecompte, by burning the Free-State Hotel, and pillaging the town.
But freedom gained the day in Kansas, and the city grew. The Eldridge House was built on the site of the Free-State Hotel, and Kansas
went through the war for the Union " 5,000 men ahead of all drafts."
But the worst was to come. At daylight of August 21, 1863,
Quantrell and hls gang of two hundred murderers dashed into the
place; the rising sun saw the city in flames, and a hundred and
twenty-five citizens lying dead among the ruins.  Eighteen more
afterwards died of their wounds. In the horrid annals of Western
barbarism, only the Mountain Meadow Massacre can rival it: this,
by a community educated under the discipline of slavery; that, by a
community educated under the discipline of polygamy. At one house
two men were killed, and, in the presence of their shrieking wives,
their heads were cut off, and stuck upon the gate-posts! Again the
city rose from its ruins, and grew more rapidly than ever. Verily, it
took men to settle such a place and hold it for freedom. But
" The grain of God springs up
From ashes beneath;
And the crown of His harvest
Is life out of death."
And Lawrence is now beyond question the most moral and intelli



THE MISSOURI VALLEY.


131


gent city in the Far West. Ten churches, two daily, two semiweekly and four weekly papers, all well supported by a population
of 15,000, attest this statement. It is one of the very few places I
visit in the West at which I always want to stop and pitch my tent
for a life-time.
Thence by way of the Leavenworth, Lawrence &       Galveston
Railroad, we journey up the valley of the Wakarusa, and through
a, dense grove of elm, walnut, ash, and hackberry. But a few miles
bring us out upon the high and rolling prairies, covered with a
variety of bright flowers and native grasses, where we find a strange
mingling of Northern and Southern scenery.  The year 1871, that
of our journey, was the wettest Kansas had ever known; but it
is never too wet, and farm products of all kinds were abundant.
Three years later came drought, with it chintz-bugs and grasshoppers, and after it destitution.  Experience has shown that these
dry seasons must be looked for at least once in seven years. At
Ottawa, in the rich valley of the Marais des Cygnes, we find a more
Southern population than that of Lawrence, but no less active in
their own interests. A Southern "Yankee" is the most crafty of
the class, as witness this little incident: In the early days a popular
clergyman of Ottawa sold what he averred to be a "blooded mare"
to one of his deacons.  Shortly after, the deacon observed some
motions in his purchase he did not like, and sought the minister's
study with"Brother K -, that mare I bought of you seems a little stiff
in the shoulders."
Drawing a fine Partaga from   between his lips, the reverend
pleasantly rejoined,
"Better not mention that, deacon; it might injure the sale of
her."
New light broke into the deacon's mind. He "farewelled," and
took his leave.
South of the Marais des Cygnes we rise to the Ozark Ridge,
" divide" between the waters flowing North and those draining into
the Neosho, a high and rocky tract which for ten miles or more in
width is of little value except for grazing.  The rock lies in thin
layers but a few inches below the surface, whieh is largely dotted
with "buffalo stamps." These are said to have been caused by buffaloes crowding together, stamping and licking the ground, led thereto
by a saline element in the soil.  Our domestic cattle, naturalized in
Kansas, sometimes acquire the same habit. Thence we run down




132


WESTERN WILDS.


a long and beautiful slope, fertility increasing with every mile, into
Allen County, the agricultural center of Southern Kansas.  Ten
days we traveled about in Allen, gathering figures as to climate,
crops, and the price of lands-all included in a later chapter. This
county already contains a population of twelve or fifteen thousand,
an enterprising and intelligent people,  Iron bridges span the Neosho; the roads are equal to those in the East; churches and schools
abound, and the immigrant finds himself in the center of an organized and progressive commonwealth.   There are more intelligent
men than new communities can usually boast; music is extensively
cultivated, and the common schools are modeled after the plan of
those of Massachusetts.
Seeing that we were eager for information (our business was to
furnish facts to intending emigrants), the old settlers gave us good
measure.  In their account there never was so rich, so great, so
prosperous a region, never such another chance to make money; the
towns were all certain to make great cities; lots were sure to double
in price in a year; pure fat might run in the furrows, and corn be
made to tassle and silk in greenbacks; one's children would grow fat
by mere contact with the soil, and his wife resume the beauty of her
youth; roasted shoats, with knife and fork stuck in their backs, would
in due time rub against him and beg to be eaten, and such robust
health enliven his frame that when he longed for death he must move
back East. One resident of Deer Creek, we were assured, had lived
so long that life was a burden (to his heirs, probably).  Weary of
existence, he moved back to Illinois, and there succeeded in giving
up the ghost, having first stipulated that he should be buried on his
Kansas farm. But such were the life-giving properties of this soil,
that, when laid in it, animation returned to his limbs, his heart'
resumed its pulsations, and the incorrigible centenarian walked forth,
to the disgust of his heirs, and the confusion of those who had doubts
about Kansas.
Three years after our visit came the notable dry year; seven years
of good crops had made them careless, and from 1873 till 1875 some
of the people of Southern Kansas actually suffered for the necessaries
of life. Will experience make them more provident, or will it continue to be a feast or a famine with them?
Continuing our examination of rural Kansas, by successive stages
southward, we passed next into Neosho County, a tract of great fertility, but largely unsettled, much of the land still belonging to the railroads. Thence we bore down into Montgomery County, and traversed




THE MISSO UR I VALL EY.


133


the beautiful slopes bordering the Verdigris River: a region of inexhaustible richness, and dotted at irregular intervals by those coneshaped mounds of rock and gravel, which are the delight of the traveler and the despair of science. Some are perfectly circular, rising
abruptly from the plain with a rocky wall of from ten to thirty feet in
height, upon which stands the cone of loam ana clay, often crowned
with a pretty clump of trees and bushes. Others rise in long swells,
abrupt at one end and sloping gradually to the plain at the other;
and still others are mole-shaped, of every length from fifty to ten
thousand feet, and from fifty to a hundred feet in height. A few have
large tracts of fertile land on top, and farms have been located on
their summits. Cherryvale, then terminus of the L. L. & G. R. R.,
was our last stopping-place-a lively town of great pretensions. As
laid off, it is about the size of Cincinnati; but only a half dozen
squares are built up yet. Thence, late in July, we turned northward
to hunt the cooler sections of the valley.
The Southern Kansian we found to be a good fellow, but somewhat
prone to the marvelous and romantic. "Snake stories" were abundant. Those reptiles are common, but seldom dangerous. The most
formidable looking is the "bull-snake," so called, an immense thing
of four or five feet in length, which gets its name from its blunt head
and thick, clumsy body. Strangers often mistake its resonant hiss
for the rattle of the real crotalus horridus, or rattlesnake. The only
dangerous snakes are the little "prairie rattlers," seldom over two
feet long; they are dull and sluggish, rarely bite, and their bite, I
believe, never proves fatal. But they serve an admirable purpose for
local romancers. A settler told us of one which bit his horse: the
animal fell dead, aid when he examined the wound, the marks of the
upper and lower fangs were four inches apart! Discount sixty per
cent. when a Kansian talks about snakes. Another told of stirring
up an immense rattler while he was hoeing corn. He aggravated it
till it struck its fangs into the hoe-handle, then killed it, and was
proceeding with his work, when he observed the handle growing
larger, perceptibly swelling with the poison. This continued for an
hour, when "the eye of the hoe popped out."  Of course the trichinzc
spiralis was peculiarly bad in such a country. We were told of one
nian in Doniphan County, who read all the accounts of that newspaper epidemic, and in turn felt all the symptoms described. He had
the "spirals" bore through his skin; in fact got decidedly "wormy."
So he took a powerful emetic, and threw up three or four handfuls
of pork worms, three lizards, a section of the worm  of the still,




134


WESTERN WILDS.


two bull-snakes, and a few rods of worm-fence, after which, adds the
local chronicle, he began to feel better.
From Ottawa we took the Kansas City branch of the road, passing
through the beautiful farming regions of Johnson County; and from
Kansas City the Missouri Valley Road to Leavenworth. Railroads
have been built for future rather than present demands in Kansas;
and the reaction in 1873,,as it prevented the rapid growth which was
expected, has caused many an investor to wail for his money in railway stocks.  Ten years from  now Kansas railroads will pay dividends; at present running expenses only are counted on. The first
station out is Wyandotte, with perhaps 3,000 people, once a rival, fow
merely a feeder of Kansas City."  A little farther on is the twicedead Quindaro, once the great city (to be) of this valley. In 1857
and 1858, it supported a rattling daily paper known as the Quindaro
Chindowan. The first was the name of the Delaware Indian woman
who sold the plat to the whites; the second, in the same tongue,
means " a bundle of rods "-the sign of authority. Its bright and
saucy editorials excelled all specimens extant of Kansas blowing.
Here was to be a second Babylon, a city founded on a rock, while
Wyandotte, on the sand, would sink to nothingness; here was to be the
entrep5t of all travel from the plains; Kansians would certainly patronize their own town rather than cross the Kaw into Missouri, and
here would be the metropolis of the glorious free and boundless West.
But an inscrutable law of nature has determined the location of great
cities; Kansas City got all the trade, Wyandotte stood still, and Quindaro disappeared. The site was entirely abandoned for some years,
and is now occupied by a few farmers. The original locators had
kept even by selling lots; later buyers were ruinedr
Leavenworth and Atchison we voted " dull," and passed on to Troy,
the neat little capital of Doniphan County, and another " city" which
had outlived its first aspirations. So many "cities" were laid off and
incorporated in Kansas that a wag in the first Free-State *Legislature
gravely proposed a law " to reserve every fourth section of land for
agricultural purposes." Doniphan County is the oldest part of Kansas;
the region is rolling or hilly, but the soil is fertile, and timber and running water abundant. The junction of the Atchison and Nebraska
Road with the St. Joseph and Denver City Road, is a mile southwest of Troy, giving the traveler the benefit of an omnibus ride up
"Almond Avenue."   At the corner of the avenue and Broadway, I
noticed a fine herd of cattle grazing, and through this part of the city
the stock have kicked down the surveyor's stakes, so it is difficult for




THE MISSOURI VALLEY.


135


one to find his high-priced property. Between Spruce and Elm
Streets was a fine field of corn, and just beyond, in the north-east
corner of the city plat, we found the village of Troy.
After a week there, and a visit to the Otoe Reservation, just over
the line in Nebraska, we again turned northward. From Troy to
Elmwood, opposite St. Joseph, we pass rapidly over a down grade.
St. Joseph looked beautiful from the western bank of the Missouri,
but like most of the towns along that stream, was quiet in 1871. The
reaction from the speculative fever of 1864-70, which culminated in
the panic of 1873, came on two years earlier in the West than in the
East. Men who felt themselves growing weaker, withdrew distant
investments and concentrated their strength nearer home. Thence
we moved up the Missouri Valley, by way of the Kansas City, St. Joseph
and Council Bluffs Road; all the way through grassy meadows or
wooded vales, stretching from river to bluffs, where not one acre in
ten is fenced or cultivated, and there is always a gentle breeze and
freedom from dust. Few trips are so enjoyable. It is strange that so
little of that broad, rich valley is occupied; it is in easy reach of market, and the Nebraska side is well settled. It is observable that the
eastern margin of all these new States is settled more thickly than the
western border of the
States next east o f
them. Cities on the      = -
western  banks    of
streams  grow  faster
than those on the east- -  LS- --
ern, and railroads running  east and west
" GREAT EXPECTATIONS."
seem to have more life
and energy than those running north and south. Before one State is
filied to the western border, another is opened and surveyed, and emigrants seem to prefer the newer one. Another cause, perhaps, is that
large grants of Iowa land were made to railroads. There were five
such strips granted across the State, besides several smaller ones; on
the Nebraska side the grants run westward from the river, and not
parallel with it. Within railroad grants the settler can only take
eighty acres, for which he must pay $2.50 per acre; outside of them
he can take a hundred and sixty at half the price per acre.
Omaha and Council Bluffs we also found dull; clerks had time to
read the papers, and the stir which attended the last two years of constructing the Union Pacific was conspicuously lacking. Thence to




136


WESTERN WILDS.


Sioux City we traveled by way of the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad.
All this distance, one hundred miles, is over the broad, level valley of
the Missouri. The lower part of the valley is wet, and largely occupied
by sloughs and old bayous. That region is settled only on the bordering highlands and slopes. This improves as we go northward; Onawa
and Woodbury are fair villages in fine stretches of land, and near
Sioux City the country is higher and better improved. That city had
held its own better than most places on the Missouri. At one time it
was intended that the Union Pacific should run westward from that
point, and up the valley of the Niobrara. But mysterious influences
were at work at Washington, and Sioux City lost that advantage. She
now has, however, four lines of railroad, including that to Yankton.
From Missouri Valley Junction to Sioux City the passengers were a
new set entirely. There were emigrants for North-west Iowa or Dakota, Indian traders or agents, cattle dealers who had army contracts,
herders, fur dealers, officers and soldiers for the posts on the Upper
Missouri, and a sprinkling of passengers for the Red River of the
North, Pembina, and the British Possessions. From Sioux City we
took stage for Yankton. The night had been rainy, and the mud
was like glue. A tenacious mixture of clay and sand, mingled with
prairie grass, would collect on the wheels till they resembled vast revolving cylinders, then fall off in immense wads, each weighing at least
a hundred pounds. Through this we toiled for twenty miles, reaching
a better country, dotted with fine farms andtneat cottages. In the corner between the Big Sioux and Missouri is a French settlement;
further on are Scandinavian and Bohemian villages. The settled part
of the Territory is largely filled with foreigners-all industrious, and
most of fair intelligence. In the valley of the Missouri there is a
nearly level flood plain,.of inexhaustible richness, and adorned by
heavy bodies of timber along the streams. The heavy fields of grain
were ripe, and in thernwere Danes and Norwegians at work, men and
women binding wheat together in happy equality. The women were
every whit as stout as the men, and seemed to endure the heat equally
well. Anthony, Stanton, and Livermore would have preached wornans' rights to them  in vain.  Whatever rights they wanted they
took, and thought no more about it. Outsiders have repeatedly petitioned the Dakota Legislature to enfranchise the sex, and have as often
been refused. The residents care nothing about it, and evidently have
an eye to the utility of woman, rather than her rights.
Fourteen hours staging from Sioux City brought us to Yankton,
the ambitious capital of Dakota, where I spent a week with my




THE MISSOURI VALLEY.


137


brother, then Surveyor-General of the Territory. This place has the
only first-rate site for a city above the mouth of the Big Sioux, and is
the natural discharge depot of all the farming section of Dakota. Not
more than one-third of that Territory is fertile land, and that lies almost entirely in the eastern and southern sections. Along the Big
Sioux, James River and Red River a fertile strip, nearly one hundred
miles wide, extends from the Missouri to the British line, while on the
south a narrow arm runs up the Missouri. Thus the good land lies
much in the shape of a V, the left arm being much shorter and more
narrow. Go northward and westward from these tracts, and you rise
by imperceptible stages: first to a strip of second-class land, then to a
tract fit only for grazing, and finally to complete desert, the last known
as the couteau or mauvaises terres (" Bad-lands"). Enthusiastic promoters of railroad stocks have told us how easily these barren tracts
are to be redeemed, but the author begs leave to dissent.
All the white inhabitants are in the extreme southern or north-eastern sections-the latter so far away from Yankton that Congress has
lately listened to their repeated appeals for a separate government.
They are in the noted Pembina region, a section older in history than
Iowa; a section I visited the next year, and found a delightful country-for Hyperboreans. All the rest of Dakota is occupied by straggling bands of Sioux-the original Romans of the North-west-whose
business and amusements were to hunt buffaloes and Pawnees. The
former furnished them with food, clothing, lodge-covers, bow-strings,
and a dozen other conveniences; the latter with victims for the stake
and torture. Of late years, by union with the whites, the Pawnees
have turned the tables very handsomely on their old foes. The Sioux
at the lower agencies and about Yankton are "civilized;" they dress
somewhat like white men, raise some grain, swear, gamble, and drink
whisky.   At the agency near Yankton they have a flourishing church
(Episcopalian), and publish a weekly paper in the Sioux language. It
is called lapi Oahye-meaning " Talk carried about "-is Republican in
politics, and ardently supports President Grant's "humanitarian policy" toward the Indians.
The spurs of the Black Hills project into Western Dakota, and all
the adjacent region consists of a series of lofty plateaus, either totally
barren or scantily clothed with grass. With an area of 150,000 square
miles, the Territory has a body of fertile land as large as Indiana, as
much more good grazing land, and at least twice as much of desert.
The fertile sections will some day support an immense population of
the North-European races, and, in due time, form a prosperous State.




138


WESTERN WILDS.


As I have since visited all sections of the Missouri Valley, a few general notes are in order.
This valley is only the lowest and richest part of that great section
known as the " plains"-an inclined plane, from four to six hundred
miles wide, between the river and the eastern base of the Rocky


DAKOTAS TORTURING A PAWNEE.
Mountains, and stretching from Texas far into British America. DLU
vide this region into three equal strips north and south, and the eastern strip will comprise nearly all fertile land, the western nearly all
barren plains and grazing ]and, and the middle a mixture of the two.




THE MISS 0URI VALLEY.


139


Let one start where he will on the Missouri, and travel westward on
any section line, he will for the first seventy-five miles traverse a region
rich in landed wealth; the "bottoms" of inexhaustible fertility, the
slopes and upland equal to any wheat lands in the world. Everywhere rich prairie grasses are mingled with bright-hued flowers, with
the colors of the tropical and temperate climes. Continuing westward,
he will notice a disappearance of the timber along the streams; it
shrinks to gnarled and twisted shrubs, contending feebly for life
against drought and annually recurring fires. Two hundred miles out,
the verdure of the Missouri Valley disappears; gama grass and buffalo
grass begin to take its place, and only the lower valleys contain cultivable land. Another hundred miles will take him into a region where
farming land is the rare exception, and where even the high plains are
dotted by tracts of alkali-the range of the buffalo and antelope. In
the strip along the Missouri, with an average width of a hundred and
fifty or two hundred miles, will be located all the agricultural population
of Kansas and Nebraska; in the same strip continued northward along
the Big Sioux and Red River, all that of Dakota, and southward the
same in the Indian Territory. All the rest, to the Rocky Mountains,
will be the range of the nomadic hunter and herdsmen. But in the
fertile strip thus bounded are still a hundred thousand square, miles
unoccupied, of the best land in America-a domain to support in affluence ten million people. Its development will not probably be as
rapid as that of Iowa or Illinois, for reasons already given; but ere another generation has passed, the States of Pembina (Huron?), Dakota,
and Oklahoma will take their places beside Kansas and Nebraska.
The middle of August I joined an excursion party at Omaha, and
with them made my eleventh trip over the Union Pacific. The broad
plains of Nebraska, the rugged mountains of Wyoming, the great desert
and the plains of Bridger, the alkaline flats of Bitter Creek, and the
wild beauty of Echo and Weber Canons, had lost none of their interest
by a short absence; and I arrived at my old home in Utah more than
convinced that Western life was the thing for my health and happiness.
A brief rest among the Saints and Gentiles, and our party moved on to
San Francisco, where we girded up our loins for the high climbs
among the wonders of the Sierras.




CHAPTER X.


THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.
ALL aboard for Yosemite and the Big Trees! How the mind
swells as these words are called through the hotel, and the fancy
paints what is to come: giant vegetation and wondrous woods; the
work of riotous nature in a tropical clime and fertile soil, exceeding
all the wonders of romance with growing reality; rocky cations and
happy valleys; glacier-hewn cliffs, reared thousands of feet in the air;
waterfalls and mirror lakes; immense flumes, cut by living streams in
the solid granite; majestic falls, and crystal cascades, foaming from a
hundred hills.
But between us and these wonders intervene many miles of wearisome travel, days of toil and nights of broken rest. Before my visit
I wondered that so many excursionists visited California, and never
went to Yosemite or the Big Trees. I wonder no longer; for the trip
is one which may well make the most hardy hesitate, though truly assured that in the end he shall see wonders that have no equal upon
this planet. Two hundred and fifty miles of staging upon the rocky
Sierras, beneath an Auguist sun, and half the time enveloped in red
-dust, are enough to make one seriously ask, Does it pay to visit
Yosemite?
We leave chilly " Frisco " at 4 P. M., and spend the night at Stockton, experiencing in that short distance about as great a change of
climate as if we should go in April from Chicago to New Orleans.
Thence at daylight we take the Stockton and Copperopolis Railroad,
which runs to Milton, where the foothills begin. In California, every
thing under two thousand feet high is called a hill; if it leads up to a
mountain, a foothill. At 8 o'clock, of a sultry morning, we take the
stage at Milton and strike north-east, over a dusty road, cheered at
rare intervals by a transient breath of wind.
Copperopolis is one of the dead mining towns of the Sierras, built
in "the great copper excitement."  Its history is like that of other
mining towns which did not happen to be located in the right place;
all summed up in the Pifite Indian's comment: "Koshbannim! heap
money spend; goddam, no ketch 'um."
(140)




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


141


From noon till 5 P. M., we endure the thumping of a Concord
coach over the Sierra spurs, those within frying, those without broiling; in valleys where the thermometer stands in dead air at 100~, or
over ridges where the stifling dust is mitigated sometimes by a gentle
breeze.  This all the way to Murphy's, another old mining town,
where we receive the cheering intelligence that the real trouble of the
route is about to begin. We change from the
coach to a "mountain-wagon "-so-called —
street hack with three seats and no springs-  '- E
capital thing for a torpid liver.  Despite the
jolting, our condition is improved. Wee leave
the dust; for there is not soil enough up here
to create it. We run beside clear, coll streams.
Ve are in a region of cool airs.  The road is
shaded by rocky cliflf, or on the levels by tall            E
timber; and the wild ever-varying beauty of
gorge, crag, or wooded flat makes us forget
fatigue.
The vegetation changes as
we gain in elevation.  The
shrubby manzanita, dwarfish
oak, and arrowwood disappear, and we are in a magnif-:
icent forest of tall trees with- '
out underbrush. Every mile
the trees increase in size; the.
smallest we see for hours are _
three or four feet in thickness,
and nature seems to usher us                    P
in through fitting portals to                               (
the wonders that are to come., I"    -' '
The big trees do not stand           TIE TWO GUAR,8MEN.
alone in grandeur, as I had supposed; but, for twenty miles around,
vegetation shades off gradually in forests of immense pines. At last
we reach the borders of "The Grove" par excellence, while there is
still light enough to appreciate its glories.
There they stand, the vegetable wonders of the world: some in
clusters, joining their branches like the columns of great gothic arches
reaching away to prop the firmament, or now and then one isolated,
and stretching out gaunt arms and opening boughs as if it would
drink the clouds. The majority appear stumpy and truncated, too




142


WESTERN WILDS.


thick for their length; but others stretch away in long, graceful columns of arborescent proportions, height, thickness, and branches, all in
such perfect correspondence, that half the effect of their size is lost;
there is such harmony in adjacent trees, and between different parts of
the same tree, that the sense of size is lessened by that of elegant uniformity. Most of the trees of two or three hundred feet in height,
have a decidedly stumpy appearance,
looking like gigantic stubs rather
than trees. At first view it seemed
to me the tops must have been broken
g ooff. The branches add much to this
illusion from the fact that they bend
downward, starting even from         the
c  n       S       body of the tree at an angle of twenty
degrees below the horizontal. This
t                    is caused by the weight of winter
snows, continued annually through
THE FALLEN MONARCHI.   all the thousands of years of their
growth. The smallest of these adjacent trees in an Ohio forest would
create astonishment; yet here they appear trifling, as mere striplings
shading off and filling nature's interval between the mammoths and
common underbrush.   StraAlgest of all, other things appear much
dwarfed. As the coach drives between the "Two Guardsmen,' at the
entrance of the Grove, the horses appear like mere ponies, shrunk to
half their natural size. My companion, as he leans against the monstrous trunk, and extends his arms for me to judge its width by them,
appears a mere manikin; the smallest tree, one I had guessed at four
feet, spreads a foot or two on either side beyond the natural reach of
his fingers, and dwarfs him amazingly by comparison. Here is the
place for man to realize his littleness. In the evening shades of these
green arches how naturally the mind reverts to thoughts of the vast,
the unchangeable, the infinite.  Heaven itself seems nearer in our
thoughts; riotous mirth is hushed; solemn awe fills the soul, and in
low-toned exclamations alone we briefly converse.
But forty miles of staging over bowlders and rocky up-grade, with
dust enough in us to start a second Adam, incline our party to think
more of supper and bed, than of the biggest trees nature can produce.
These comforts, first-class, are found at the Big-Tree Hotel, and for a
summer resort one can spend weeks very pleasantly there. Daylight
at 4.30 A. M. shone through the green arches with a new and wondrous
beauty, and we awoke to the contemplation of a new world, another




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.       1


143


creation, as it were, where nature seems to have proceeded on a special
plan, too Cyclopean for the common world outside.
Of course, the first object for to-day is the great fallen tree and
stump, the latter now covered with a handsome summer-house, and
fitted up as a pavilion for dancing. The tree as it stood was 302 feet
in height, and 96 feet in circumference 3 feet from the ground. But
there is a little of the "brag " in this measurement, as most of these
trees spread greatly near the ground, and do not assume a symmetrical
J,                     [
SOMETHING OF A STUMP.
and tree-like shape before reaching the height of ten feet or more.
The bark was eighteen inches thick, and the total diameter 28 feet.
Five men were twenty days felling it, the object being to have it sawed
into cross-sections to be shipped eastward and to Europe. The work
was done with long augers, boring it off little by little; but when entirely severed, such was the perfect plumb of trunk and branches, that,
to the amazement of spectators, the tree merely settled down and still
stood'as if refusing, conscious of its majesty, to bow to human endeavors. Vast wedges were'then inserted on the northern side, and driven
little by little till, heaved beyond the line of gravity, the mighty
growth came crashing to the ground. It would seem that nature must
have yielded an audible groan at this desecration.
A bowling alley was constructed upon the upper portion of the
trunk, but not 'proving remunerative, has been removed. The "butt
cut" of the tree lies as it fell, the top reached by means of a ladder;




144


W4 ESTERSN WILDS.


then a large portion is gone-sawn out in foot sections and transported Eastward.  The "Father of the Forest," largest of all the
trees, is also prostrate and slightly buried in the ground, having
evidently fallen many years before the grove was discovered (1852).
Its circumference at the base is 110 feet; thence it is 200 feet to the
first branch, the tree hollow all that distance, and through this tube I
can easily walk erect. Unlike the other, it was evidently much decayed, and was broken by its fall, besides breaking down several
smaller trees with it. By the stumps of these it is known to have
been at least 420 feet in height, and may have been considerably more.
Near its base is a never-failing spring of clear, cold water.
"The Mother of the Forest," so named from two round protuberances on one side, is the largest tree now standing. The bark has
been removed to the height of 116 feet, but without it the tree is 84
feet in circumferance at the base.  Twenty feet from  the base it
measures round 69 feet, and thus on, decreasing with elegant legularity to the height of 321 feet, making this the most symmetrical of
all the larger trees. And for this reason its vastness is seldom appreciated at first view. In such fine harmony, the sense of immensity is
lost. It is not until one has gone around the tree. many times, and
viewed it from different points, that he comprehends its grandeur.
The bark was from ten to twenty-four inches thick, bulging outwardly in a succession of ellipsoids around the trunk; it resembles a
mass of velvety red fibers, and blocks of it are in use all over the
country as memorial pin-cushions.  A practical lumberman of our
party estimated that this tree contained at least 520,000 feet of sound
inch lumber.
Next are the "Husband and Wife," a noble pair of saplings, each
60 feet around the base, and 250 feet in height, growing near and
bending lovingly toward each other till their upper branches are mingled in a dense wooden and leafy mass-a canopy sufficient to shade
5,000 persons! Near by is the "Burnt Tree," prostrate and hollow,
into which one can ride on horseback for sixty feet. Across the roots
it measures 39 feet, and from all indications its height must have been
over 300 feet. The "Horseback Ride" is also hollow its entire
length; in the narrowest part the interior is twelve feet wide, and can
be traversed from end to end. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a hollow
stump in which twenty-five persons can be comfortably seated; while
near by the " Three Sisters" stand side by side in graceful amplitude,
each twenty feet thick and 200 feet high, of exact proportions and
equidistant from base to crown.




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


145


The trees are mammoth redwoods, assigned by botanists to a class
known as Sequoia gigantea. In an elaborate description written soon
after discovery, a patriotic English scientist christened them the Wellingtonia gigantea.  This roused the jealous ire of
a California savan, who, in a ludicrous                 {'
spasm of national pride, gave them the
specific title of Washingtoiia gigantea.
But by common consent they are now
known by the name first mentioned.
Like all other timber of the Taxodium
genus, they are but little subject to decay, and the most impaired of the fallen
trunks has undoubtedly been prostrate
for many hundred years. In this dry
air, at an elevation of 3,000 feet above
sea-level, with drought in summer and
snow in winter, and only the light rains
of spring and autumn, decay requires
long periods, compared to which a human
life seems practically naught.
We have gazed long upon these botanic marvels, and still new beauties appear at each, new study; but it is wlien
we come to estimate their age that amazement reaches its climax, and we can truly
compare the duration of these monstrous
trunks with man's brief period
of growth and decay. The
trees of this genus require
twenty years to increase one
inch in diameter; the bark
twice as long to gain the
thickness of a knife-blade;
the timber, in a drying air,
will not perceptibly decay
within the life-time of man.
By these a n d many other
signs, more than all by the
number of annular rings, it              A MONSTER.
is demonstrated that the largest of the Sequoias must be 3,000 yeare
10


3




1L6


WE'STERN WILDS.


old. Outlasting ninety average generations of men! And the fallen
ones are probably 1,000 years older.
And yet these are not the oldest trees in the world. In Africa
there grows a species of mimosa, which, by the same indications, is
proved to be 6,000 years old. A sapling when Adam was a stripling! There seems to be no satisfactory theory to account for their
growth here. Climate and fertile soil may have done much; but I
incline to the belief that they are a sort of relic of the age when
all vegetation was gigantic; as one age of geology must have subsided with easy grades to the next, we may have here the last vegetable survivors of the age just before us, and after their fall, no more
big trees. Eight miles south of here is another collection, known as
the South Grove, and containing 1,380 trees in close order, averaging larger than these, but the largest a foot or two less than the
largest here.  But we have seen enough for the present to fill the
mind with images for years, and weary us in conjecture.   Time
presses, and with to-morrow's earliest light we are off for YQsemite.
From the Big Trees we take the new or mountain road to Yosemite;
instead of going back to the valley, we start directly southward across
Table Mountain, the Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and smaller streams. This
route takes in the mining and fruit region, and a specimen of all that
has made California famous. The Sierras have a general course from
north to south, and a height of from ten to fourteen thousand feet; and
from them successive rivers put out westward, each in its upper part
traversing a mountain gorge or clear-cut cation, which widens westward to a broad valley bounded by slopes and foothills of genial clime
and rare fertility. Our southward route, one-third the way up the
slope of the Sierras, involves great variety; we come back on the Big
Tree road to Vallccito, and there take a light wagon to cross Table
Mountain and the Stanislaus. Parenthetically, the names in this account are either Spanish or Indian, and pronounced thus: Stan-is-lowh,
Val-le-cee-to, Tu-ol-un-ny, Mo-kel-un-ny, Gar-ro-ta, Man-zan-ee-ta,
Cap-i-tan, Mer-ceed, Cal-a-ve-ras, and Yo-sem-i-ta.
From the brow of Table Mountain we look down two thousand feet
upon the Stanislaus, a narrow silvery band flowing down a rocky
trough. The cation wall seems to stand at a threatening angle of seventy degrees; but down this slope the stage road goes by a zig-zag,
first out upon a projecting shelf, where two feet farther would send us
to destruction, and then into a groove in the rocky wall. Down this
combination of dips, spurs, angles, and sinuosities, the driver takes us
at full trot, with lines taut and foot on brake, ready to check at a mo



TIHE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


147


ment's notice; for an instant moderating to a walk as we make the outward turn on some rocky flat, then loosing his team to a full run as we
shoot into the inward grooves, the coach bounding over bowlders or reacting from the stone bulwarks which line the most dangerous places.
We cringe and close our eyes in many places, or cling to the side of the


YOSEMITE FALLS.
coach, half ashamed of the fear our acts betray; but before we can
question, or exclaim a dozen times, we are at the bottom, and ready to
ferry the Stanislaus. The narrow band, as seen from   above, has
widened to a considerable river, now quite. low; but in winter and
spring the melting snow from the notched hills 6,000 feet above
swells this stream to a destructive torrent, rising fifty feet above its




148


WESTERN WILDS.


present level. On the south side another mountain-grooved road
leads up 2,500 feet to the divide between the Stanislaus and Tuolumne.  No running here, but with slow steps the steaming horses
drag us along, and we lounge back over the coach seats, gazing alternately at frowning cliffs above and the river sinking in dim perspective below.  No wonder that California is producing a new race
of original poets; for, surely, if a man have the poetic instinct, this
clime and scenery will bring it out in tropic luxuriance, and cause
his genius to put forth wondrous growths of freshness and quaint
originality.  This society, these scenes and this clime-Italy and
Switzerland combined-are the true home of poetry and romance.
Two hours of toil bring us to the summit, and thence down a barren hollow a sudden turn reveals an oval valley of rare beauty, in
the midst of which is the pretty town of Columbia, fourteen miles
from where we changed coaches. Here we enter the great region of
placer and drift mining, once alive with twenty thousand miners, and
musical with the hum of an exciting and curious industry. For six
miles we run among washed-out-placers, beds of " tailings " and
"poor dirt;" wind around sluice-boxes, or cross ditches which lead in
the water from a main canal which begins fifty miles up the Stanislaus. At intervals all day we encounter the great ditch of the
"Union Water Company," sometimes winding along the mountain
side in rocky flumes, sometimes passing beneath us in deep cuts
through narrow ridges, and as often far above our heads in mid-air
aqueducts-carried on trestlework for hundreds of feet across a rocky
hollow-to me a curiosity almost as great as any in the scenery.
This ditch, built by an incorporated company at an expense of two
million dollars, begins at the very head of the Stanislaus, where that
stream is formed by affluents from the melting snows of the Sierras.
It is sixty miles in length, winding a devious course to preserve its
level, along the mountains and through gorges down to the foothills;
furnishes water to a hundred mining camps, and at last, after beinor
used, collected, cleared in reservoirs, and used again half a dozen
times, its water, yellow with the refuse of pay dirt, or red with iron
dust, spreads in a dozen irrigating streams upon the lower valley.
Careful study to select the route, skillful engineering to lay it
out, economy of space and material, perseverance and capitalall spurred on by the love of gold-combined to produce the
work.
Mining here began with the "rocker," many of which we see even
now rotting along the gulches; next came the "long tom," which




THE WONDERS OF CA LFORNIA.


149


shares the same fate, and lastly was introduced "piping" and complete hydraulic mining. Little by little this great industry has
passed away; the works are fallen to decay; the placers are mostly
worked out; three-fourths of the mining camps are abandoned; picks
and " long tbms" lie among rocks and debris, and California, from
an annual production   of
forty millions in gold, has
sunk to half that amount.                        -       MEeRanching"  came next, and
all this industry is not lost;          "     E
thae fnlues and water are used
for irrigation, without which
the smaller vegetables           andd affordig
fruits are not a perfect sutecess.
Six miles through   olde v
mines bring us to Sonorg gar,
where we gladly take a Concord coach for the rest ofd un te r. A
the trip.  Sonora Valley,
opening to the south-west,
enjoys an Italian clime, and
from February to December
is glorified by flowers of all  -
hues.  Here we see giant
oleanders, fifteen feet high,
which grow out doors all the
year, and gardens excelling:.
the utmost flights of my
EL CAPITAN.
fancy. Apples, p e a c hIi e s,
pears, apricots, figs, damsons, grapes, and quinces we see growing luxuriantly in the same inclosure, many now ripe, and affording most
gratefiul refreshment to our heated excursionists. All along the route
to Yosemite fruit is abundant and cheap-all one can eat for ten
cents-growing even to within half a day's staging of the valley.
But this beauty is brief. Right beside these blooming gardens,
right up against the walls, are worked-out mines, hundreds of acres
of bare boulders in beds, all the soil " piped" away in search of the
"tpay dirt," which lies below the soil and upon the rocks. A massive
brick church stands in the south part of the town, around it lies an
acre of ground dotted with tombstones, the city grave-yard, and up




150                    WESTERN WILDS.
to the very walls of the inclosure the dirt is washed away down to an
unsightly mass of bare, gray rocks, leaving the church-yard by rare
grace perched upon an eminence ten feet above the placer flats.
There the rude forefathers of this mountain hamlet-dead miners by
scores-lie in "pay dirt "-fit resting place-and their living companions seem to have barely respected their last repose. Over all
this region, with rare exceptions, is a peculiar air of abandon and
decay; worked-out placers, deserted cabins, dry flumes and sluiceboxes falling to pieces, look as though the site were haunted by the
ghost of former prosperity. Fifteen miles of comfortable staging in
the valley of the Tuolumne bring us to Chinese Camp, originally settled by Mongolians working " old diggings," but since mining gave
place to agriculture, settled by the whites. A few hundred Chinese
remain, and as we pass the outskirts of the town, we note a rude
frame tent and beside it a dozen China women chattering and howling alternately, and learn that a sick Chinaman has been removed
there to die. These people never allow one to die in their cabins, if
it can be decently prevented.
Here we change again to the stoutest of mountain wagons; for, we
are kindly assured, all the pounding we have suffered is child's play
to what is to come. Fifteen miles of stony up-grade bring us to Garrote, which we reach at nine P. M., and gladly sink to sleep. It
seems that we have but closed our eyes to half forget in sleep the
beauties or toils of the way, when at three A. M. the call comes to take
a fresh start. We take the invariable " eye-opener " of ice-cooled California white wine, and after a hasty breakfast are off into a dense
forest, the daylight breaking grandly through the green arches'and
casting great scallops of light and shade to cheer the still sleepy travelers. We are out of the foothills, and upon the spurs of the mountains. The streams are clear as crystal and delightfully cold, for we
are far above the mining districts and near their snowy sources.
Vast forests of redwoods and sugar pine, the trees from two to eight
feet in thickness, shade the way. At every pause we hear a strange,
solemn murmur from far above our heads, a gentle swell as the mountain breeze thrills the tree tops, like the far-off diapason of'a monstrous organ, or a gentle tremulo stealing upon the senses with a
music all the more subtle that it can not be described. My companion, Mr. J. W. Bookwalter, of Springfield, Ohio, compares the scenery
to that of a Florida forest of a winter morning. One by one all who
started with us have stopped to rest, but being old travelers, we have
held on, and to-day have the coach to ourselves.




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


151


Before noon we enter the Tuolumne Grove, where many trees are as
large as the average at Calaveras, but none within less than two or
three feet of the largest there. Over all this part of the Sierras, probably forty miles each way, the timber is immense. We drive between
two trees, each twenty feet in thickness. We find one stump forty
feet high and twenty-six feet thick, and hundreds scattered for miles
along the way from ten to eighteen feet thick, and from two hundred
to two hundred and fifty feet high. If the traveler does not wish to
make the diversion by Calaveras Grove, he can still enjoy the sight
of tall timber here, on the direct routte to Yosemite. Thirtyseven miles from Garrote bring us to Tamarack Flat, the highest point
on the road, the end of staging, and no wonder. The remaining five
miles down into the valley must be made on horseback.
While transferring baggage-very little is allowed-to pack-mules,
the guide and driver amuse us with accounts of former tourists, particularly of Anna Dickinson, who rode astride into the valley, and
thereby demonstrated her right to vote, drink ("cocktails,' bear arms,
and work the roads, without regard to age, sex, or previous condition
of servitude. They tell us with great glee of Olive Logan, who,
when told she must ride thus into the valley, tried practising on the
back of the coach seats, and when laughed at for her pains, took her
revenge by savagely abusing every thing on the road. When Mrs.
Cady Stanton was here a few weeks before, she found it impossible to
fit herself to the saddle, averring she had not been in one for thirty
years. Our accomplished guide, Mr. F. A. Brightman, saddled seven
different mules for her (she states the fact in her report), and still
she would not risk it, and " while the guides laughed behind their
horses, and even the mules winked knowingly, and shook their long
ears comically, still she stood a spectacle for men and donkeys." In
vain the skillful Brightman assured her he had piloted five thousand
persons down that fearful incline, and not an accident. She would
not be persuaded, and walked the entire distance, equal to twenty
miles on level ground.
While we pause, a brief note on the route is in order. From Milton, by way of the Big Trees to Yosemite, is 150 miles; and from
Yosemite back by Chinese Camp direct is 109 miles, making a total
of staging of 259 miles. Add 100 by rail going to Milton, and
twenty by rail and 100 by steamer returning, and we have a total of
220 by rail and steamer, and a grand kotal of 479 miles in going
and return. For all this we pay the moderate price of forty-six dollars per man. To this must be added three dollars per day for nec



152


WESTERN WILDS.


essaries upon the road, and the same for each da' in the valley for
guide and horse; that is, if you go to see all that is there, and if
you do not, you had better not go at all. But hundreds of visitors
never go out of the little open flat around the hotel, contenting themselves with a general view of distant wonders. Horace Greeley,
when he visited the valley, rode sixty miles on horseback, though he
had not been in a saddle for twenty years, reach- ing the hotel at midnight completely exhausted;
and minus at least two square feet of abraded
cuticle. He went supperless to bed, and having
an engageSa                      -      ment to fill,
at_                                         left at noon
pre                   next day, and
t               e                to the second
night thereafter lectured
at a town
neirly two
hundred miles
away. When
the railroad
is completed
southward to
the Merced, it
i s estimated
Y ~                                  that a firstclass stageI  road could be
built from the
crossing right.Ai..w,:c    ",                       up the Merced to the
BRIDAL VEIL FALL.,
Yosemite, for
$100,000, and certainly the State could not make a better investment.
The road would have to be blasted out of the foot of the cliffs along
the gateway, where the Merced flows out of Yosemite; below, the
grade would not be difficult, and it would save two-thirds of the wear
at present required. All that man can do has been done on the
present route, and still the trip is very exhausting.
'With all set and every thing tightly "cinched," we took the start




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


153


with guide in front, finding the first mile and a half to Prospect
Peak not particularly difficult. A sudden turn brings us in view of
the valley, but little is to be seen as yet; then we emerge from the
timber upon a shelving rock, and the guide stops for us to take our
first view at Prospect Peak. We walked out upon the rock, which
becomes level as we near the edge, with a feeling of disappointment;
but suddenly, when far enough to see below, we paused and trenibled. Astonishment and awe kept us silent for a moment. At our
feet yawned a chasm bounded on this side by a precipice with sheer
descent of near two thousand feet; on the other a mist-enveloped
cascade poured from heights so high and dim, that to our eyes it
seemed tumbling from the clouds. Far, far below, the Merced
foamed through the rocky gateway which forms the outlet of the valley, while the whole wall below us seemed fringed with pines, jutting from every crevice, and growing apparently straight into the air
from the solid wall of rock.
We turn again to the left into a sort of stairway in the mountain
side, and cautiously tread the stony defile downward; at places over
loose boulders, at others around or over the points of shelving rock,
where one false step would send horse and rider a mangled mass two
thousand feet below, and more rarely over ground covered with
bushes and grade moderate enough to afford a brief rest. It is impossible to repress fear. Every nerve is tense; the muscles involuntarily make ready for a spring, and even the bravest lean timorously
toward the mountain side and away from the cliff, with foot loose in
stirrup and eye alert, ready for a spring in case of peril. The thought
is vain: should the horse go, the rider would infallibly go with him.
And the poor brutes seem to fully realize their danger and ours, as
with wary steps and tremulous ears, emitting almost human sighs,
with more than brute caution they deliberately place one foot before
the other, calculating seemingly at each step the desperate chances,
and intensely conscious of our mutual peril. We learn with surprise
that of all the thousands who have made this passage, not one has
been injured. Such a route would be impassable to any horse but
these mountain-trained mustangs, to whom a broken stone staircase
would be as safe as a inacadamized road.
At last comes a gentler slope, then a crystal spring, dense grove
and grassy plat, and we are down into the valley. Gladly we take
the stage, and are whirled along in the gathering twilight. - To our
right, Bridal Vail Fall, shedding a brilliant sheen in the twilight;
further up Inspiration Point, and to the left El Capitan rearing his




154


WESTERN DILDS.


bare, bald head 3,300 feet above us, beautifully, purely gray, in clear
outline against the rosy sky. Darkness shuts out all beauty by the
time we reach Iutchings' Hotel, and we gladly sink to rest, with little
thought of the wonderland we are in.      *
We rise to view a new creation, as it seems-a rift in the earth five
miles long and nearly two miles wide in the center, walled in by everduring granite. Here is a minor cosmos, where nature seems to have
proceeded on a more extensive plan, as if determined to outdo all in
the outer world of common-place. A forenoon we give to rest and
gazing, for there is enough to be seen for that time from the porch of
the hotel. After noon we start out northward, to the foot of Yosemite Falls, one and a half miles front us.  The cliffs in front rise
nearly 3,000 feet above us, and all along the perpendicular wall we
see the marks of ancient glaciers and waves wearing smooth the rocky
face; but above, where first the peaks rose from the sea of primal
chaos, rough and frowning battlements attest the violence of the rent
which divided this from the southern siae. About half way up the
cliff is a small offset, where grows a beautiful pine, with branch and
foliage forming a perfect cone, seeming like the larger growth of ornamental shrubbery. Yet that shrub is a monster tree 160 feet high,
and above it the perpendicular cliff is just eleven times its height.
Go into the forests of Ohio or Indiana and select the tallest tree, and
remember that the upper division merely of Yosemite Fall is at least
ten times that height! Or imagine ten Niagaras piled one above
another.
A thick forest of pines and firs fills the benter of the valley, and
through it we follow up the bed, now almost dry, of Yosemite Creek,
the bowlders increasing regularly in size as we proceed, until at last
the way is blocked by vast masses of granite, hurled, as in Titanic
war, from the cliffs above. The immense wall gives back, leaving an
inlet into the mountain, the sides of which, like buttresses, approach
each other at a sharp angle, and down one side of this inlet pours the
Yosemite, now shrunk to a mere rill.  But in May and June the
congealed floods, on heights 5,000 feet above, are loosed and fill the
high flume with a raging torrent. Then great liquid volumes fall
from the first height, 1,600 feet, strike and break to a thousand
splintered streams, lacing all the second fall for 400 feet with dazzling lines of foam; then gather in another flume, take another
plunge, and rebounding from the cliff in a million comminuted
streams, roar into the basin below. Large logs from the mountain
forests plunge a thousand feet without check and splinter into frag

o




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


155


ments, but sometimes pass entire, and with many tumblings are
drifted far down the plain. The three divisions of the fall are, respectively, sixteen hundred, four hundred and thirty-four, and six
hundred and thirty-three feet, making the total fall two thousand six
hundred and sixty-seven feet. Climbing for two hours, we reach the
highest accessible ledge, inscribe our names, and return.
A cool evening follows, and on the porch at Hutchings' I rest
and gaze and                        ____
think. To the fl__
north-west is
quired Cto brpitan,ng about this wondrous combination which I can surglorified in tsheil                                       y
soft moonlight; opposite Yosemite
Fall, to the
right, th                                           e
Royal Arches,
and all aroundig as
the monster
battlements
with shrubby
fringe, till we
seem walled in
far down in
the depths of
earth, and involuntarily
ask: What if
ancient order
suddenly return, and these
cliffs again      ~                                       y~
unite, as sci-                                            j J
ence tells us                  SENTINEL ROCK
they were once united?   What ages of cosmic process were required to bring about this wondrous combination which I can survey in one quick glance; what infinite forces, working silently in
God's laboratory for inconceivable ages, produced all this scene my eye
can sweep over in ten seconds? What ages; what unending wons of
duration-an immensity clipped out of eternity —were required to




156


WESTE. RN WILDS.


perfect this work?  Can the mind with utmost stretch revert to a
period when all was ethereal, gaseous; when earth was a nebulous
mass; when Cosmos first had being-then the time required for it to
becomie a molten mass; the ages thence to solidity-the first crustthe shrinking, the ridging, the upheaval; then the earthquake wave
which rent these cliffs asunder; then the convulsions lasting through
millions of years, and ending in the mighty subsidence in the bottom
of this fissure crevice!  Then came the age of erosion, the glaciers
successively writing their history on these rocky tablets; the ages of
wear required to polish smooth these granite walls, and symmetrize
the facings of the cliffs. At last came the age of disintegration, of
mold, of soil, of growth, of animals, and last of all man-the last by
all reasoning the shortest.
The next day is set for the great excursion to Mirror Lake and
Nevada and Vernal Falls; and, after a hasty breakfast, we are off
fot the most toilsome and yet most enjoyable day to be spent in the
valley.  Saddles are carefully set, and mules "cinched" with these
mountain girths, eight inches wide, until it seems they can scarcely
breathe; for we are to have perils of water and mountain —perils by
the way. We cross the crystal Merced, of deceitful depth-it looks
four feet and is really ten-and lively with mountain trout, in front
of the hotel, and take our way eastward up the valley, with the
Royal Arches to our left. In some convulsions past, the granite has
fallen from the north side in successive sections in such shape as to
form the likeness of five great arches, one within the other, half a
mile long from west to east, and rising in the center 1,500 feet.
Standing on the northern shore of Mirror Lake, we view, reflected
in the lake from right to left, South Dome, Old Man of the Mountains, Cloud's Rest, Mount Watkins, and the Watch Eye, all notable
and noble peaks upon the south side, rising fiom 2,000 to 4,000 feet
above the cliffs that bound the valley. Crossing in a skiff to the
south side, we see, reflected from the north, Mount Washington,
Mount Calhoun, and the far-reaching wall of the lower valley. The
lake is a great crystal map of all the adjacent hills and cliffs, beautiful only because of beautiful surroundings, not remarkable in itself,
but dazzling by reflection of greater glories.
From Mirror Lake we come back on the same trail a little way,
then straight south across the valley till we are directly under the
southern cliff, which, instead of being perpendicular, here overhangs,
and seems momentarily to threaten destruction; then eastward up
what may be called the main branch of the Merced to the head of




THE WONDEIRS OF CALIFORNIA.


157


the valley. The smaller branch comes in from the north-east, under
the shadow of the North Dome and the Cap of Liberty-the last a
wondrous cone, rising directly from the north cliff, 1,000 feet of
beautiful yellow  and smooth rock, completely inaccessible.  The
south-east branch of the Merced plunges down from its source in
NORTH DOME AND ROYAL ARCHES.
the ice-peaks by two magnificent cataracts, Nevada and Vernal Falls,
and a series of beautiful rapids and cascades between them. But
there is no reaching the foot of the lower fall on horseback; we
are to return by it from above, down a perilous stairway, and now
must make a wide detour to scale the cliff, or first offset, which frowns
2,000 feet above us.
No possible passage is visible to our unaccustomed eyes; the side
seems almost perpendicular, and when the guide tells us we are to
" go up there," pointing with his finger at an angle of eighty to a flat
projecting peak-seeming to our vision half way to the sky-we shake
our heads incredulously. 'But I have piloted two thousand people
up there," says the confident Brightman, and we are reassured and
follow him. I dare not venture on a description; even now I can
shut my eyes, see it all, and shudder.
Imagine the route in, with all its difficulties doubled, and going up
instead of down, and some faint idea may be formed. Here, we are
told, there has been one accident. Three weeks before a saddle, not
carefully girted, slipped back, and the mule straightway went to
"bucking;" the rider jumped off on the upper side, and the mule
undertook to run down the mountain, but soon lost his footing and
went rolling from rock to rock, till ricocheting oile hundred feet from




158


WESTERN WILDS.


one offset, lie fell upon the next flat, with every bone splintered, and
his flesh reduced to a jelly. Two hours climbing bring us to the
level above the Vernal, and turning a sharp rocky point, we come in
sight of Nevada Falls, the largest and highest continuous fall. The
approach here is easy, and we are soon at its foot. Rushing down a
rocky flume from heights four thousand feet above and miles away;
the Merced comes clear as alcohol to the edge, and takes the first,
plunge,' four hundred feet clear; then dashes against the rocks, rebounding in comminuted foam   of dazzling White; then collecting
again to a hundred tiny streams, it is.off at last from the rocky face in
filmy slanting lines of cloud and foam, transparent mists so delicately
flowing downward that one can scarcely say they move. The silvery
sheen, like a hanging crystal-web, is lifted by the wind, swaying now
against the rocks, and now far out over the valley; then, in a momentary calm, falls back to break into a thousand transparent fluted
sections, gliding downward over the rocks in ever unfolding, ever renewing liquid lawn.
Suddenly the howitzer is fired from the Mountain House across the
gulch. The echo breaks sharply upon us from our side, and returns
from Cloud's Rest on the north; then seems to die away amid peaks
and hollows, but suddenly breaks again upon the startled car; then
repeats in slow declining reports from peak, cliff, and point, again to
renew and again die away in a thousand repetitions of splintered
sound. The effect of these sights upon different persons is a curious
study. The noisy are still, the garrulous silent, and even the least
profound are awed to a solemn reverence with something akin to fear.
After a frugal dinner at the Mountain House-every thing has to be
carried thither on mules-we come down by the hand-rail beside
Vernal Falls, while Brightman returns the mules by the other route
as far as Registry Rock, the first point where we can meet him.
Piwyack-" cataract of diamonds "-as the Indians call it, well deserves the name; though known by the whites as Vernal Falls, from
the beautiful emerald tints it displays. It consists of one clear fall of
three hundred and fifty feet, and is accessible at more points than any
other fall in the valley. The water starts from the cliff in two great
rocky flumes, twenty feet wide, and perhaps a foot in depth; but long
before reaching the bottom is utterly broken into minutest fragments,
and rolled into one great airy sheet of foam; snow-white and dazzling,
bordered apparently by pearl-dust, it seems a column of cloud breaking upon the rocks to light surf and starry crystals. As the foam
floats upward the sky clears suddenly, and the sun pours a flood of




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


159


bright rays into the gorge; the dropping lines of emerald take on a
brighter tint, and a rainbow in five concentric rings springs upon the
sight. The wind sways back the gauzy column; the penciled rayslose their exact focus; the rainbows break into two, four, eight, an iiifinite division of iridic tints, and the whole presents a luminous aureole a hundred feet in diameter: another draft of air, and we have a
dissolving view; then a lull,
and back swings the fleecy
foaming column in two bodies, and twice the number of M                               f
circling  rainbows  delight
the eye. Back comes the
wind, and away swings the
watery  column, bringing
again the double breaking
lines of iridic tints; the eye
is relieved by  new  prismatic cdmbinations, and the                                 f
overwrought senses roused            c
to  new  delight by fresh
showers of more brilliant
constellations.
The stairways about Vernal Falls are well arranged,
and the steps hewn in the,
rock afford many favorable
points to view the entire  n
fall. Gladly would we have                                  h
lingered here, but the approach of evening called us away while our enjoyment was still at its height.
The hours of rest pass pleasantly at our hotel
on the banks of the pellucid Merced.  The inhabitants are only second in iftterest to the
valley. In 1862, Mr. J. M. Hutchings walked in,
and pre-empted the land where his hotel now NEVADA FALLS, 700 feet
stands. Years ago he came in on snow-shoes to       higk.
see if the valley was habitable in winter, and soon after moved his
family in. From May till October all is lively in the valley, then a
gloom, born of perfect isolation, settles upon the place; and the few
who winter through are as completely cut off as one can imagine.




160


WESTERN WILDS.


Once a month or so, an Indian works his way down the south slope on
snow shoes, bringing in mail and taking out reports from the imprisoned.  With three hotels, saw mill, and two ranches, some fifty persons reside in the valley. There is a saloon, billiard-hall, bathingrooms, barber shop, and reading-room; and the general arrangements
are such that one could spend the summer there very pleasantly.
Want of space
forbids a fuller
account of the
sights upon the
southern cliffs: of
Pohono-" Spirit
of the Eivil
Wind" - called
by  the   wh itee
Bridal Vail, a
tiny stream with
37a fall                                   of over
nine hundred
and forty feet;
of Lung-oo-tookoo-ya -                                Long
and  Slejnder"or the Ribbon,    Fall, amounting
in different cascades  to 3,300
'~                           feet; of Tis-sac                      -   -    ack- "Goddess
of the Valley"
VERNAL FALLS.
-or the South
Dome; or of Tu-lool-we-ack-" The Terrible"-the wild, craggy
gorge of South Canion. Nor is my pen equal to the task of doing
justice to Tu-toch-ah-nu-la-" Great Chief of the Valley" —or El
Capitan, rising  at something more than a perpendicular, leaning
over the valley, to an elevation of 3,300 feet; nor to Wah-wahle-na-"The Three Graces "-whose heads shine from   a height of
3,750 feet. All that the utmost stretch of fancy can picture of the
giant-like, the colossal and Cyclopean, is but a shadowy conception
of this immense reality.  No description has ever been written.
None can be written on this earth. The subject is beyond the prov



THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.


161


ince of mere word-painting. A man must die and learn the language
of the angels before he can describe Yosemite.
The return route, all the way down hill, was as rough as the going,
but took less than half the time. We found four changes of climate.
From the cool Sierras to the hot valley was a trial of endurance. Taking the steamer at Stockton, we were soon down among the tules on


4


MIRROR LAKE.
the San Joaquin. At 3 P. M., the thermometer stood at 100~; at
dusk, on the river, it was just pleasantly cool; we woke next morning
at the San Francisco wharf, where the cold sea-breeze made overcoats a necessity. The seasons are all mixed up in that city. August
is the coldest (to one's feelings) and September the warmest month
in the year. There is no perceptible difference between January
and June. Ladies wear furs in July and August, then lay them off
till November.  The changes in the ocean-winds account for this
paradox.
A day in August is a miniature copy of the seasons, except that no
snow falls to represent the hard winter of the East. We rise at 7 A.
M., to a balniy early spring morning; if very hardy, even a visitor
can go without a summer overcoat; but, to stand around the streets,
I find it more pleasant to wear mine. The rising sun scatters the
11




162


WESTERN WILDS.


light, fleecy clouds, and shines out with some fervor, and by 10 A. M.,
I take off my overcoat, for a mild summer has set in. This continues
with beautiful steadiness until 2 or 3 P. M.; then the thermometer falls
about five degrees very suddenly, as the afternoon fog comes rolling
over the city. November continues from 4 till 7 P. M., at which time
regular winter sets in.  It is, in reality, only eight or ten degrees
colder than at noon, but the change makes it seem to me like December. I button tight my overcoat, slap my fingers vigorously, and exercise till I get acclimated; then take a hearty dinner, and two cups
of hot coffee, put on my muffler, and go out for an evening view of
this most cosmopolitan of cities: first to the Chinese Theater, and then
in turn to all the local oddities.
The beauty of Sunday afternoon tempted us to accept the local custom and use that day for an excursion to the Cliff House.  It stands
on the opposite, that is, the western side, of the peninsula, about
four miles from the main part of the city.  Whirling along through
the sand-hills, on which I noted a plentiful supply of two old Utah
acquaintances-sagebrush and greasewood-a sudden turn to the left
gave a free outlook towards the West; there I took my first view of
the Pacific, and in a few minutes was upon the seaward porch of the
Cliff House.
The day was calm and almost cloudless; the sight westward free
even to the meeting of sea and sky; the blue vault, and the soft air
of the Pacific, were over and around us; to the right the Golden Gate
opened into the bay; while below us, and far down the coast, the white
surf was breaking upon the shore, with that sublime music which has
been the delight and the despair of poets since the poluphloisboio of
Homer.   The house stands upon a projecting rock, some forty feet
above the waves, which beat incessantly upon the jagged points below,
and at times even dash their light spray into the faces of those upon
the seaward porch.  Apparently a hundred yards out-really three
times as far-stands the cluster of rocks which are the resort of the
sea-lions.  They were there in numbers, not playing in the waves as
sometimes, but lying in groups upon the top of the rocks, their deep,
hollow bark mingling with the roar of the surf. A lone rock, a little
further out, is covered in the same way with gulls, visitors not being
allowed to fire at either.
Below the Cliff House a road, cut into the rock and walled on
the side next the ocean, leads down to a sandy beach below, where
the hills recede from the slore.  A long salt marsh, easily forded,
is shut off from the ocean by a sand "spit," on which is a firm and




THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA.                 163
excellent drive, even to the edge of the surf.  Taken altogether,
this may be called the Long Branch of the West.
As the afternoon drew on, while we were watching the gambols
of the sea-lions, which had aroused to unusual activity, the air suddenly grew dim, the rocks appeared to recede, the view of the ocean
was shut off, and a dense bank of fog came rolling inland, while
long lines of mist spread over the hills and went creeping through
the hollows towards the city. By 4 P. M., the breeze was coming
in strong from the ocean; the air, which three hours before was
quite warm, grew uncomfortably chilly, and the crowd turned towards town. Reaching Montgomery Street, we found it dark with
fog and mist, and a damp cold night set in where the morning had
been so bright and warm.
A week was scant time to see and enjoy San Francisco, but the
mines of Utah were fast rising into importance, and demanded a
historian; my old friends called for me, and I regretfully left the
Pacific coast for the very unpacific Territory.




CHAPTER XI.


UTAH ARGENTIFERA.
THE Gentiles were all talking of silver mines; the Mormons of
"persecution of the Saints" and "God's wrath at the wicked Gentile
government." Chief-Justice McKean had ruled all the Mormon officials out of the District Court, and made the United States Marshal
the ministerial officer; the latter had selected non-Mormon grand
juries who were ferreting out all the crimes committed by the Saints
in the old " blood-atonement era." Lawsuits as to mining titles
doubled and redoubled. The District Court at Salt Lake City, which
formerly finished the term in two weeks, now sat ten months in the
year; one-half its time settling titles to mines, the other half trying
Mormon criminals. Five indictments were pending against Brigham
Young; a hundred Latter-day Saints were under arrest, or hiding in
the mountains. Money by tens of thousands was pouring in to purchase silver lodes; every body swore by the Emma Mine which had
given the Territory such a reputation. Every miner expected a fortune; many Gentiles looked forward to the early overthrow of Brigham. There was no little bird to whisper "Schenck-StewartTrainor Park-Baron Grant," or hint that before twelve months the
Supreme Court would upset the Utah Judiciary. There were visions
of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, of monstrous lodes of silver
ore, of a Territory redeemed; the Gentile speculator rode on the crest
of a swelling wave, and smiling hope beckoned him on to greater
ventures.
Though Judge McKean was then the central figure, the other Federal officials came in for an equal share of Mormon abuse. N No matter
what they had done or left undone, they were guilty on the main
point: they recognized no sovereignty in Brigham Young; they loved
republicanism and hated theocracy. Governor Geo. L. Woods especially came in for unstinted abuse. His conduct in suppressing the
Mormon militia was painted in frightful colors. History and Scripture were ransacked for precedents.  The fruitful annals of Israel
furnished the Mormon preachers with abundant similes: He was a
Romftn overnor, oppressing the Holy Land; an Amalekite, hindering




UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


165


the march of Israel; he was Pharaoh, enslaving God's chosen; he was
Herod, thirsting for innocent blood; he was Pilate, crucifying the
Lord afresh. Daniel and Revelations were reopened: the Government was like haughty Babylon rushing on to destruction; war was
soon to scourge America; all our cities were to be desolated, and
Washington in particular was to be sown with salt and rooted up by
swine!  The Gentiles were equally
fierce in their zeal to prove Utah's
and the love of gain were playing a
strange drama in the shadow of the
Wasatch.
It was the dryest and sickliest
season I ever knew in that Territory. The Great Salt Lake, which
had risen year by year till it stood      MTHE MORMON MILITIA.
fifteen feet higher than when first
surveyed, had suddenly fallen far below the water-marks set up by
Captain Stansbury in 1849. On the north and east the bordering
marshes were dry, their basins shining with salt. The pleasant babble
of the water-seeks along the city streets was not heard; the channels
were dry, and full of dust and refuse. What little water City Creek
supplied was needed for irrigating the inner lot, and every-where on
the streets the shade-trees had a strange, half-dead look, the leaves
curled and withering. When I arrived from California, September
1st, fifty-five persons had died in three weeks out of a population of
fourteen thousand.  Two-thirds of the people complained of the
malaria. No such season had been known in Salt Lake since the
notable " famine year." So I soon took stage for the hills, and for
three months devoted most of my time to inspecting the mines.
Sixteen miles across the valley and over the "bench," brought us
to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Cafion; while a storm swept over
us and tipped the summits of the Wasatch with snow. In these enclosed basins clouds rise from the lakes and marshes and float away,
without shedding their moisture, to the mountains; there they are
checked and fall in rain, causing the mountain sides in places to be
covered with timber, while the' valleys are always bare.  A damp,
numbing wind swept down the caflion, growing colder as we gained in
height, till overcoats and gloves failed to secure warmth; while above
and around us every-where the peaks glistened with snow, seeming by
imagination to add to the cold, and by the middle of the afternoon we




166


WESTERN WILDS.


saw the trees on the slopes gray-white with rime, and knew that we
had invaded the domain of winter.
I For two days the storm continued, and then the late mild autumn
of the mountains set in. In summer and autumn the Cottonwood district is the most delightful of cool retreats; in winter a lofty snowbank, with here and there a gray projection. In the winter sunshine
it would, but for the occasional patches of timber, present a painfully
dazzling expanse of white; and as it is, serious snow-blindness is not
uncommon. When a warm south wind blows for a day or two, there
is greater danger of snow-slides. In January, 1875, the snow fell
there, without intermission, for eight days, filling the deepest gulches,
into which the few stray animals plunged and floundered helplessly.
In the circular mountain-hollows, with a good growth of timber, the
snow drifted from ten to forty feet deep, leaving the largest trees
looking like mere shrubs. Distant settlements were quite isolated,
and the narrow passes thereto stopped by snow. However, in the
best developed mines work went on under ground, all the side
t chambers and vacant places being stacked full of ore as fast as it
was mined. In a few more days the sun came out bright and clear,
and though the thermometer rarely rises above the freezing point
during the first two months of the year in the higher camps, yet the
warmth seems to have been sufficient to loosen the snow not yet
tightly packed; and In every place where the slope was great and
the timber not sufficient to bind it, avalanches of from one to a hundred acres came thurfdering into the camlons, sweeping all before them.
One of the largest swept off that part of Alta City, Little Cottonwood,
lying on the slope. Six persons were killed outright, either crushed
by the timber of their own cabins or smothered in the snow, and
many more were buried five or six' hours, until relief parties dug them
out. One woman was found sitting upright in her cabin with a babe
in her arms, both dead. The cabin had withstood the avalanche, but
the snow poured in at the doors and windows, and they were frozen
or smothered. Thirty-five lives were-lost in Utah that winter by
snow-slides. Six men were buried in one gulch a thousand feet under
packed ice and snow. Search for them was useless. But at length
the breath of June dissolved their snowy prison, and the bodies were
revealed, fresh and fair, as if they had just ceased to breathe.
Alta City, the metropolis of Little Cottonwood, is at the center
of an amphitheater, the ridges rising one or two thousand feet high
on all sides, except the narrow opening down the calon.  In this
circuit is a mining population of twelve or fifteen hundred people,




4


UTAH ARGENTIFERA.                    167
and most of the old and noted mines of Utah-The Emma, Flagstaff, Davenport, South Star, Titus, and a dozen others.  The ore
carries from $100 to $200 per ton in silver, and from thirty to sixty
per cent. in lead. Thus the base bullion produced from this ore
is from ninety-six to ninety-nine per cent. lead, and is shipped
eastward for separation. The old question, "Which is the heavier,
a pound of wool or a pound of gold?" has its correct application
among miners; for gold and silver are estimated by Troy weight,
wool (and lead) by Avoirdupois. This distinction is preserved even
when lead and silver are in the same ton of base bullion. Hence
a pound of wool is heavier than a pound of gold or silver, though
an ounce of either metal is heavier than an ounce of wool!
North of Little Cottonwood, and also opening westward upon
Jordan Valley, is the canon of Big Cottonwood, with a similar class
of mines. Far up the canon is Big Cottonwood Lake, in the center
of a beautiful oval vale, where the Saints usually celebrate Pioneers'
Day-the 24th of July, on which date, 1847, Brigham Young and
party first entered the valley. From any commanding point above
either caflon, one ca/n look out westward over Jordan Valley, over
the lower sections of the Oquirrh Range, over Rush Valley west of
it, and on a clear day, upon the far summits of Deep Creek Range,
glittering like silver points in the dim distance.  But the grandest
view is from the summit of Bald Peak, highest of the Wasatch
Range, and nearly 12,000 feet above the sea. Thither I climbed towards the close of an autumn day, and overlooked one quarter of
Utah. Eighty miles South of me Mount Nebo bounded the view,
its lowest pass forming the "divide" between the waters which
flow into this basin, and those flowing out with the Sevier into the
Great Desert. Below me lay Utah Lake and vicinity-a clear mirror bordered by gray slopes; far down the valley, Salt Lake City
appeared upon the plain like a green blur, dotted with white; northward the Salt Lake rolled its white-caps, sparkling in the sunshine, while the Wasatch Range, glistening along its pointed summits with freshly-fallen snow, stretched away northward till it faded
in dim perspective beyond Ogden. A hundred and fifty miles from
North to South, and nearly the same from East to West, were included in one view-twenty thousand square miles of mountain, gorge,
and valley.
Eight days sufficed to visit most of the mines of Little Cottonwood.
From thirty to fifty tons of ore were leaving the cafion daily, and
at least a thousand new locations had' been made, every one of




4


168                   WESTERN WILDS.
which the confident owners expected to develop into an Emma. The
last day the air suddenly grew hazy, and, looking northward, we
saw the sky of a peculiar ash and copper color. Old miners shook
their heads ominously and said: "The fire is sweeping Big Cottonwood."  Next morning the p'eaks were shrouded in smoke, and
about 4 P. M., a great white column shot into the sky for thousands
of feet, apparently just over the "divide," then, swaying back and
forth, settled into the shape of an immense cone, and we knew to
a certainty that the wind was "down the cation," and, consequently,
the fire nearing the Big Cottonwood smelting works. It took me
all the next day to pass the "divide," for the lowest point on the
ridge'is 2,000 feet above Central, and the descent still greater on
the northern side. When I reached Silver Springs the fire was nearing the town, and after night-fall the sight was indescribably grand.
From the summit of Granite Mountain, dividing the heads of Big
and Little Cottonwoods, down through the lake region and Mill
Cation, to the tops of Uintah Hills-for eight miles in a semicircle
around and above us-the view was bounded by great swaying sheets
of flame. The sky to the zenith was a bright blood-red, and down
to the West a gleaming waxy yellow; while almost over us Honeycomb Peak, where the timber had burned to a coal, and which was
divided from us by a large rocky gorge, stood out detached and glowing red like a volcano outlined against the sky.
Morning came, and with it detachments of miners from neighboring camps, working their way through the lower defiles, to fell timber and " burn against the fire." The town is in a grove of quaking
asp, and was in no great danger; but, across Cottonwood Creek, where
the Smelting Works stand, the growth is mountain pine, which burns
green 'or dry. The whole cation was so full of smoke that the sun
could barely be discerned, and the pyrotechnics of the night bad
given place to a death-like gloom.  From the creek to the mountain
summit south was a roaring mass of flames, when at noon the wind
suddenly changed, and for twenty-four hours blew almost a hurricane
up the cafion. The timber had been felled for two hundred yards
around the works; it was now set on fire, and the great business enterprise of this camp was saved. After the day of wind came rain,
then snow, and next morning the latter, four inches deep, was melting slowly into black mud.
South of the Cottonwoods, American Fork Cafton opens upon the
Utah Lake Basin; a succession of wild gorges and timbered vales
cause it to be known as the Yosemite of Utah. A narrow-guage rail



UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


169


road, built by Howland & Aspinwall, to transport ore, runs down
the canfion and out to the Utah Southern; so that the traveler can
reach the head of this canion by rail from Salt Lake City. There a
rich gold lode has lately been discovered, and there is a prospect of
big developments in that direction. The silver ores are mainly carbonates; transportation is vastly cheapened, and low grade ores can
be worked profitably.
East of American Fork, over a very rugged range of peaks, is the
Snake Creek District. The creek empties into the Provo River, and
most of the mining has been done by the Mormon farmers from the
valley below, who go up and mine only in the intervals of farm work.
Such workmen develop a camp very slowly, and the Mormons generally, except those from mining regions in Europe, are singularly deficient in ability for the business.  The student in social science.
might find here some curious matter for reflection, in the way the two
classes are located in Utah. The Gentiles are on the hills, the Saints
in the valleys; and along a single street in the old Mormon towns
the ore wagons pass to and fro. and the tide of Gentile travel ebbs
and flows, making scarcely any impression upon the slow and sleepy
Europeans. Occasionally you will see a Gentile located in one of
these places; but he is always keeping a way-side hotel or restaurant, and looks singularly out of place. Without church, school, or
society, his sole interest centers in the Gentile travelers.  If able,
financially, he sends his children to boarding-school in the city; if
not, they get an education as they can catch it. His neighbors charge
him about a third more for produce than they do each other, and
never patronize him in return. The rules of the " Order of Enoch"
are that a Saint can sell to a Gentile, but must not buy of him. The
city council-for every village is incorporated in Utah-always
charges him the largest license they think hlie will endure, always
raising it if the trade increases; and thus some of these little governments are almost supported by the Gentile travelers.  Eastern
orators and editors frequently ask why we don't feel more kindly
towards the Latter-day Saints. It is singular, isn't it?
I went next to the Western Districts. Passing the southern point
of the lake, where the Oquirrh leaves barely room for a broad wagonroad, we enter upon Tooele Valley, eastern section of Tooele County.
This county contains 7,000 square miles, and not more than a hundred
sections of cultivable land! Of the rest, one-third or more consists of
mountains, rugged and barren, or scantily clothed with timber and
grass; and 4000 square miles of the worst desert in the world. But it




170


WESTERN WILDS.


contains three of the richest mining districts in the West, and a dozen
more which promise equal richness when developed. Hence the agricultural (Mormon) population is small, while the Gentile miners have
increased rapidly' hence, too, this is the first, and as yet the only,
county in the Territory to pass under Gentile control, and is known in
our political literature as the " Republic of Tooele."  Tooele City, the
county seat, and only considerable town, was long inhabited by the
most fanatical Mormons in Utah; and when, in 1870, the opening of
mines first set the tide of Gentile travel flowing through the place,
they resisted change with stubborn tenacity.  At length Mr. E. S.
Foote, now representative elect from the county, ventured to set up a
Gentile hotel; but they led him a merry dance for a year or two. The
city council raised his license every quarter, until it took one-fifth or
more of his receipts to pay ft; and every Gentile who smoked a cigar,
ate a dinner, or stayed over night at Foote's, was putting from ten cents
to a dollar in the city treasury. Still he pulled through; one after
another came, and now the flourishing Gentile colony in Tooele have
church, school, and social hall of their own, and the young Mormons
welcome the change. When the county offices passed. into Gentile
hands late in 1874, the old Mormons seemed to expect nothing less
than ruin and confiscation, and are yet scarcely recovered from their
amazement.
Eight miles beyond Tooele is Stockton, the "lead camp of Utah."
Most of its mines yield from $20 to $40 in silver, and from a thousand
to fourteen hundred pounds of lead per ton. Hence the ore works
almost as easily as metallic lead melts; and though long considered the
slowest, as it was the oldest, mining town in Utah, with more capital
and cheaper transportation, Stockton is steadily growing in importance.
Here we enter Rush Valley, an oval some fifteen by thirty miles in
extent, with a water-system of its own, and cut off from the Great Salt
Lake by a causeway some 800 feet high. Twenty years ago the center
and lowest point of this valley was a rich meadow, and included in a
government reservation six miles square; now the center of that
meadow is twenty feet under water, and a crystal lake eight by four
miles in extent covers most of what was the reservation. Such is the
change consequent on the aqueous increase of late years in this strange
country. Three deep canions break out westwardly from the Oquirrh.
In the southern one, known as East Canon, "horn-silver," or chloride,
was discovered in August, 1870. In three months a thousand men were
at work in that district. Bowlders were often found lined with chloride of silver, which yielded from $5,000 to $20,000 per ton. Ophir




UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


171


City, the metropolis, stands in the bottom of a canon 2,000 feet deep,
which makes a very singular division of the district. On the south side
are bonanzas of very rich ore, mostly chloride in a limestone matrix, with
little or no admixtures of base metal; on the north side are larger
bodies of lower-grade ore-a combination of sulphides of iron, lead,
arsenic, anti-CH                   E,  N H.
anony, and zinc,h i                         74. T    e oe
carrying in sil-  ii,          i
ver fr              m        m $30
to $80 per ton,
and from twentyto fifty per
c      en             t of  ea            d      d
From the series                  t        f     t
of mines on
Lion Hilwere determined to retain their hold o
sou     th side  Federal District Judges were equally determined the
kc     now as the
Zequityla, Rock-eedings directed by Courts of
well, etc., have
been taken at
least $800,000
in silver, leaving an immense
amount in
sight.                      CHLORIDE CAVE, LION HILL.
Over the sharp ridge which bounds East Caion on the north is Dry
Cafion, which was the leading camp of Utah in 1874. There one mine
yielded three-quarters of a million. In this camp carbonates of lead
and silver predominate, all the ore smelting freely. Both carlons are
included in Ophir District, which has passed through the three periods
destined for all new mining camps. The year 1870 was the era of
discovery and high hopes; 1871 of wilder speculation, not unmixed
with fraud; then came the era of reaction and long drawn-out lawsuits, which were aggravated by the wretchedly unsettled condition of
the Utah courts. It was the.era of transition from the old Mormon
system of juries directed by priestly "counsel," to the Gentile system.
The Saints were determined to retain their hold on the courts, or cut
off supplies; the' Federal District Judges were equally determined the
courts should not run unless independently of the Mormons. Courts
of Equity in the afternoon enjoined proceedings directed by Courts of




172


WESTERN WILDS.


Law in the forenoon; injunctions tied up every thing, and restraining
orders confronted every body, and the weary way of contending claimants lay across a desert of fruitless litigation, diversified only by mountains of fee-bills, and strewn with certioraris, nisi priuses, and writs of
error. Capital fled the scene of so much contention. There were more
lawsuits impending than the Third District Court could have settled
in ten years. At last some of the disputes reached a conclusion iii
court, twenty times as many were compromised, and in 1874 the district entered on the more satisfactory stage of steady work and development. The deepest mine is now down 1,400 feet, and the great question as to whether these are permanent fissure veins is being solved in
the only way it can be-by digging. The district contains some 1,200
workihg miners, and about half as many women and children.
Language fails me to portray the hardy enterprise, nerve, and perseverance of the miners who are opening the silver lodes of Western
Utah. Roads are being laid out across every desert, trails over every
range; and on every mountain that lines this Territory and Nevada,
hardy prospectors are hunting for "indications" and opening new silver districts. The latest enterprise of note is in Dug-Way District,
lying some ninety miles west of Ophir City, across one of the worst
deserts in this desert region. Though this chapter begins with the
autumn of 1871, I have condensed in it my later observations on Utah
mines, and may as well insert here a more complete description of the
Western District.
All the interior of the Great Basin, between the Mormon settlement which line the foot of the Wasatch, and the corresponding valleys which open eastward from the Sierras, has one uniform character
of rugged grandeur and barrenness. It is divided into many inferior
basins by a number of short and abrupt mountain ranges, running
north and south, and furnishing scant supplies of water, with here and
there a stream large enough to irrigate a few acres. Between these
ranges lie almost level deserts-plains where the soil is a compound
of sand, salt, alkali, flint rock, and an incoherent red earth, destitute
of all vegetation, save rare patches of stunted white sage-brush, resembling pennyroyal more than any plant to be seen in Ohio. At
times, however, the entire soil is of a4 ashy white earth, half of it
probably alkali, solid only in winter and wet weather, but in the dry season easily stirred up in blinding white clouds. An area of some 60,000
square miles does not contain a hundred sections of cultivable land;
but at the mountain bases are found considerable tracts of the yellow
bunch-grass. In the old freighting days, the custom of teamsters was




UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


173


to skirt along these ranges to the narrowest part of the desert, recruit
their stock at the last grass and water on this side, then drive night
and day until they reached the first grass and water on the other side.
Take it for all in all it is about as worthless a region as ever lay out
doors; and, on the Hoosier's " Coon-dog principle," ought to be rich
in mines, for it is of no account for any thing else.
The only game in most of that region is jack-rabbits and sage-hens;
other animals
are the sandy                 aor horned                           __- __
to ad, rattlesnake flies; the snakes live on the toads, and the Gandoshoots eat all
ground-mi ce.
On many of
the hills'grows
the piniotn na half cmate sta,
pine, on the                                          suy
nuts of which
with   grass
seeds,   and
roots, and  alen
chance  capt-                  GOSIOOT LOVE-FEAST.
ure of game, the Goshoots (Gosha-Utes) eke out a miserable existence. The sand-flies live on the greasewood; the horned toad lives
on the flies;the snakes live on the toads, and the Goshoots eat allb
three. From September to December, the Indians fatten up considerably; the rest of the winter they pass in a half comato se state, crouching over a little fire in brush "wickiups," or lying on the sunny side
of a rock, sleeping as much as possible, with a meal or two per week
of ground-mice or frozen snake, coming out in the spring as lean and
lank as fence-rails. There are no deformed or idiotic among them;
the winter kills all the old or weakly ones; only the hardy.can breed,
and the struggle for existence secures the survival of the fittest.
Across that region I went in May, 1875, to visit the new mines in
Dugway Range. From Ophir City, forty miles westward through the
passes of the Onannoquah Range, brought me to the ranche of "Pegleg" Davis, the last house this side of the Great Desert. All the
miners who had visited Dugway told me to take- careful directions
from Davis, for that a new trail had been located straight from his
ranche to the camp, and only thirty-five miles long-a little slough of
water about the middle of the route. But Mr. Davis informed me




174


WESTERN WILDS.


that every stranger who took that route got lost, as it led among
some sand-hills, where the trail would not hold, and only direction
could guide one; but the sand-hills shut off the view and left one without direction. My best plan, he thought, was to follow down the old
Overland, guidedl by the telegraph poles where the sand had obliterated the track, nine miles to Simpson Springs, where I would find the
last water, thence nine miles to River Bed, and just beyond that a
trail led straight across, and only twelve miles long to the foot of
Dugway Mountains, and into a rich, green canflon, where I would find
water. Thence it was only twelve miles around the foot of the mountains to the mines. But, he added, "if you get lost or don't find the
water, start back immediately, for if your horse goes more than a day
without water, you're a goner."
I set out gayly on a cool May morning, and took in liquid supplies
(a canteen-full) at Simpson Springs. Thence it is fifty-five miles on
the stage road to the next water, at Deep Creek, where is an oasis
large enough to support twenty Mormon families. Until 1874, they
were as completely isolated as if on an island in mid-ocean; but now
a new mining district is opened near them. Deep Creek Range is so
high that its summits, capped with snow throughout the year, can be
seen a hundred miles away. Dugway Range is over thirty miles in
length, north and south. At the north end five or ten miles of desert
intervene between it and Granite Range, which trends north-west, and
is so full of heavy galena mines that they are literally of no account.
That is, no locator can sell one of them, for any man who can handle
a pick can go there, and find a mine for himself in a week. The. mountain is literally full of lead; but it is a new district, and a hundred miles from the railroad, and time and capital are required for
development.
Nine miles from Simpson Springs I descended into River Bed, the
strangest phenomenon of this strange country. For nearly three hundred mile-all the way from Sevier Lake to the western shore of
Great Salt Lake-runs an immense dry river-bed. Once the channel
of a stream as large, apparently, as the Ohio, it is now a channel of
the purest white sand. It is scarcely possible for the stranger nearing
it to resist the illusion that he is approaching an immense stream.
There are the bold bluffs, the gentle slope, which looks as though it
ought to be clothed with blue-grass, and is scantily clad with cactus
and greasewood; the broken bank and the sandy bed from half to
three-quarters of a mile wide. If the Ohio ten miles below Cincinnati
should suddenly dry uip, and every green thing on its banks perish, it




UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


175


would present an exact picture of this channel. Piles of minute shells,
long winrows of wash-gravel, and plats of white sand, all indicate that
the current was to the northward, and swift and strong.  Having
crossed it to near the western bank, a smaller channel with minor indications presents itself, all going to show that after a stream the
size of the Ohio had flowed on for uncounted thousands of years, there
was a shrinkage in volume, after which a stream more like the Little
Miami continued for thousands of years more. Here and there along
the three hundred miles of this extinct river, sharp mountain spurs
put out from main ranges and cut it off, and more frequently there are
up-heavals; but the stream impartially continues on its course, up hill
and down, and over them all. Our local scientists say that wet and
dry cycles follow each other around the world; that Utah once had the
rainiest climate on earth, followed by a dry cycle; that the latter has.
slowly run its course, and that we are once more entering on an era of
abundant rain. Very pleasant to hope, "But all may think which
way their judgments lean 'em.''
Beyond River Bed I struck the trail, and twelve miles across a hard
bed of gravel and alkali brought me to the foot of the mountains, and
into the richest bunch-grass pastures I have seen in Utah. I entered
the cation, hunted two hours, and found no water; then skirted along
the foot of the mountains northward for five miles, but saw no camps
and no sign of road or trail. Night came on suddenly, as it always
does on these deserts, and the situation looked blue. Expecting to eat
supper with the miners, I had taken no provision. My horse had
plenty of grass, and I had water enough to last me thirty-six hours.
Could we stand it thus another day?  I thought we could, concluded
to camp till daylight, and hunt again for the road to the mines.
Tying the lariat to a sage brush, that my horse might graze its
length, I lay down in a gully with only the saddle-blankets and my
overcoat for a bed. In twenty minutes the sky was overcast, and in
twenty more there came a cold, almost sleety rain, chilling me to the
bones. No sleep for that night. I must walk to keep from freezing,
and might as well walk toward comfort and safety. Here was a situation! Forty miles from the nearest food and shelter, thirty miles
from drinking water, on the mountain- side, 10 o'clock at night, and
a storm of sleet coming on. Sadly I rigged up again and set out afoot
on my return. At intervals the clouds broke away, amd by the fitful
glimpses of the moon I selected a mountain peak which I had marked
by day as due east, and made that my landmark. Hour after hour I
toiled on across the desert, warm  enough now with exercise and




176


WESTERN WILDS.


anxiety, and sustaining fatigue by thoughts of how much worse the
travel would be in the daytime.  Soon after midnight the storm
ceased; and at two in the morning, I found myself on the western
slope of River Bed, and in another hour the telegraph poles loomed
up out of the darkness. Never would I have believed that a man
could be so glad to see a telegraph pole. Thence the road was plain:
the sky was clear, though the air was very cold, and I thought to
sleep till daylight. But it wouldn't do. I couldn't cuddle to sagebrush, and stiff with cold, I got up and toiled on.
Looking back from the rising ground over the desert, I saw the
most sublime scene I
have  witnessed  for
many a day. There
was not a cloud in the
sky, the air was in a
ldead calm, and the
gibbous moon    was
just sinking behind
the Dugway Range.
Bathed in its mellow
LOST ON The  DE.           light the white plain
took on a glory that
was indescribable.  The mountain ranges and isolated red buttes
glowed like silver on one side, and on the other cast great pointed
shadows for miles upon the white- surface.  The snow-clad peaks
above Deep Creek shone with a dazzling light; the blue peaks of
Granite Mountain seemed to be painted against the clear sky, while
on its western face the porphyry dykes gleamed like burnished
copper. 'Between the mountains where the view of the plain was unobstructed, it seemed to rise and fade away into the horizon. I forgot
cold and hunger in gazing upon the sight. Soon, however, mountain,
peak, butte, and plain, seemed to sink down into an abyss, as the
moon disappeared; and for an hour I had only the stars to guide me.
Then suddenly from the peak I had made my landmark, a purple
streamer stretched away to the zenith; then another between that and
the southern horizon; then another and another, and soon the whole
firmament took on a purple glow, while the rugged top of the Onannoquah Range seemed clearly outlined against the eastern sky. Then
the purple hue gave way to a pale rosy color, the rose to crimson, and
the crimson again to yellow; one by one the stars faded out, and I saw
the snowy tops of Deep Creek Mountain faintly tipped with the




UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


177


yellow rays of the coming sun. The line of telegraph poles seemed to
rise out of the ground far ahead; the morning note and flutter of a
sage-hen were occasionally heard, and my horse gave a loud neigh, as
if to attest his joy that the tiresome night was gone.
His neigh was answered by another, and I soon came upon a camp
of Mormons, who had, the previous day and night, made the fifty-five
mile drive from the last spring on the other side to Simpson Spring.
From them I got a biscuit and cup of coffee, and after watering and
resting my horse at Simpson, made the ten miles to Davis's place by
10 A. M.   At first I thought myself in good condition, but in an
hour or two, my anxiety being over, I felt that ninety miles walking
and riding in twenty-seven hours, without food, had produced effects.
How my bones ached! But nature does wonders for a man in that
dry, bracing air, and in twenty-four hours I was myself again.
I have said that the Salt Lake Basin is the largest and most important of the various subdivisions of the Great Basin; the finest view
of it as a whole can be obtained from the deck of a steamer on the
lake. This is now the most pleasant excursion in Utah, and our celebration of Independence Day, 1875, on the lake, will long be held in
delightful remembrance. The steamer "General Garfield," formerly
called the "City of Corinne," made two and three hour trips all day;
first to the eastern shore of Stansbury's Island, then to the western
shore of Antelope, and again through the deep soundings between.
Stansbury's Island lies eighteen miles from the landing, and is about
ten miles long from north to south. We went on board at 10.30 A. M.,
and at fifteen minutes after twelve grazed the shore of the island, having a strong wind to contend with. But nobody cared to land, as the
island is nothing but a vast red and yellow rock rising to a height of
2,000 feet above the water.  Antelope or Church Island lies some
fifteen miles east of the former, and is sixteen miles long, nine miles
wide in the center, and rises 3,000 feet above the lake surface, its summit being 7,250 feet above the sea. Remember that the water on
which we were sailing is higher than any mountain in Virginia or
Pennsylvania.
From the deck of a steamer on the lake, the view eastward includes
two hundred miles of the Wasatch Range, its summits every-where
glistening with the remains of last winter's snow, not yet yielding to
the July sun. Westward the nearer Cedar Mountains obstruct the
view, but here and there through the lowest gaps can be seen glistening from afar the white summits of the Goshoot and Deep Creek
Ranges. Between the two are Granite and Dugway Ranges, but so
12




178


WESTERN WILDS.


much lower than the others that they are invisible. As the day advances the fine haze rising from the lake blots out all the lower portions of the ranges, and the glittering summits stand outlined against
the sky like points of burnished silver suspended in mid-air. From
three corners of the lake great tongues of open country project back
into the mountains, constituting the three great valleys of this basin.
To the north-east Bear River Valley lies in the shape of a half open
fan, the lower end twenty-five miles wide, the valley running thence
to near the Idaho line, where it narrows to a mere caflon. South-east,
Salt Lake Valley proper runs southward between the Wasatch and
Oquirrh, in shape very like a horse-shoe. Early in the day we can
see from the deck of the steamer many buildings in the city, the oval
dome of the Tabernacle shining conspicuously; but as the haze deepens
the " rising mirage " appears, and the whole city seems to rise slowly
and melt away into nothingness. This haze is not visible to the eye.
The day is apparently as clear as ever; the sky is blue, the sun
shines with his full power, and the sharpest eye can not discern any
mist. But distant objects fade out of sight, and fine outlines become
blurred and indistinct. The finest time for a view is, of course, in the
early morning. Then the mountains fifty miles away seem as distinct as if within a mile, and all the peaks shine through the clear
air with great beauty.
It is often said that there is no living thing in Great Salt Lake.
There is a minute animalcule on the bottom, resembling a fine shaving
of the skin from one's finger, more than any thing else I can compare
it to. As it grows ip size it beats in towards the land by the action
of the waves, and finally swells up into the likeness of a worm, and
floats upon the water. The boatmen think that the flies, which are so
numerous around the edge of the lake, breed from this worm, and this
idea is strengthened by the fact that the empty hulls of the worm,
like abandoned shells of chrysalis, float on the water in large sections
extending in long dark lines for hundreds of feet. At first I supposed
these collections were merely the bodies of drowned flies, but on examination they proved to be the husks, so to speak, of what had been
worms. All sorts of attempts have been made to propagate life in
the lake, or mouths of the affluent streams, but one and all have failed.
Oysters have been planted at the mouths of the rivers, but when the
wind was up stream, the dense brine setting in from the lake killed
them. Jordan was stocked with eels a few years ago, but they floated
down into the lake and died. One was picked up long afterwards on
the eastern shore, completely pickled. The finder cooked and ate it,




UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


179


and found it very palatable. Gulls and pelicans abound in places
around the lake, feeding on the flies and worms. Captain Stansbury
reports finding a blind pelican which had been fed by its companions
and kept fat. At points where grassy marshes border the lake the
buffalo gnats are numerous and troublesome. There are indications
that buffalo were abundant in this basin a hundred years ago. The
Indians say the Great Spirit changed them all to crickets! The latter
were very destructive to the first crops of the Mormons, until the
gulls came in immense flocks and devoured them. The Mormon historian in pious gratitude says: "There were no gulls in the country
before the Mormons came." In the slang meaning of that word, this
is on a par for facetiousness with that statement in the Book of Mormon: " Great darkness overspread the land: yea, darkness wherein a
fire could not be kindled with the dryest wood."
We next try a sail on the yacht. Several sail-boats are now run on
the lake by various clubs; ours only held ten persons besides the four
sailors. A strong wind from the north-east enabled us to make eight
miles an hour, the neat craft riding the waves like a sea-bird. But
when we turned towards the point, and had to take the side waves, four
of the passengers suddenly turned pale behind the gills. By heroic
efforts and frequent recourse to a black bottle, we kept down our
dinners, but at the end of two hours "chopping" were glad to get on
solid ground again. At 6 P. M. dancing began, and the latest comers
put through the night in that amusement. Almost every public occasion in the Far West begins or ends with a dance.
Space fails me to describe in detail the rich mineral districts of
southern Utah.  Beaver County alone has a dozen districts and
several hundred miners. The county contains almost every mineral
useful to man-silver, iron, copper, coal, kaolin, and fire-clay of most
excellent quality. Withal, the climate is singularly mild and equable.
The summers at Beaver City I found a little cooler than at Salt Lake;
the winter much like that of middle Tennessee, only dryer. The fertile valleys there would yield provisions for 50,000 people; and with
the extension of the railroad to that point it will doubtless be the
richest region of the South, the metropolis of southern Utah and
northern Arizona. Utah now contains ninety mining districts; the
mines and improvements are valued all the way from fifteen to thirty
million dollars, and the annual yield of lead, silver, and gold has
reached five millions. All this interest has been built up since 1869,
by the work of those whom the Saints stigmatize as " d-d Gentiles,"
and whom apologists for Brigham call "adventurers and carpet-baggers."




180


WESTERN WILDS.


Copper is found in vast quantities in Tintic and some other districts,
but the reduction thereof has not made much progress. Bismuth ore
is found in the southern counties in abundance. Graphite, black-lead,
native sulphur, alum, borax, carbonate of soda, and gypsum are widely
disseminated. Beds of the latter have been discovered that will richly
pay for working. Salt is so plentiful as scarcely to be an article of
commerce. Near the lake, and in many other localities, it can be had
for shoveling into a wagon and hauling home. Fire-clay and sandstone are abundant, as is building stone of every description, including
marble and granite. Kaolin of the finest quality abounds. All the
ochres used for polishing, pigments, and lapidary works are in inexhaustible supplies. The Territory will not average one acre in forty
'fit for agriculture, but nearly all the rest is valuable for some kind of
mineral. This growing interest has created a party in favor of annexing Utah to Nevada. The new State would be about as large as
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois combined, but it takes something more than area to make a State. The population would be, perhaps, 150,000-just about enough for one member of Congress. The
advantages would be immense. It would bring them under the mining laws of Nevada, which are probably the best in the world; it
would give the non-Mormons a free ballot, and some chance for representation, and balance the crushing power of the priesthood by a large
population of miners and Americans. Pprhaps it would be well to
annex only the two northern degrees first-containing the most minesand when Nevada shall have assimulated them, add the rest. With
some such consummation as this, I have no doubt the American public would be only too happy to bid farewell to Utah Territory.
To many Americans Utah is even yet a land of mystery-the home
of strange rites and unhallowed religion; but to me, in its physical
features, it is already as the home of the soul. As more and more I
become familiar with it, I see how little Mormonism has to do with its
real greatness, how small a space it will occupy in its future history,
and what countless other matters there are of wonder and interest.
Long residence and frequent travel have made the Territory as an
entirety far better known to me than any other part of our country.
On the instant a mental picture, colossal in outline and interesting in
details, rises to my vision: its snow-clad peaks glowing in the clear
air of June, and dazzling white beneath the burning sun of August;
its 30,000 square miles of rugged mountains, seamed from side to side
with mineral wealth; its cations and cool retreats; its shadowed trails
and dashing mountain streams swarming with trout. Not less roman



UTAH ARGENTIFERA.


181


tic, though mingling the useful and waste, and filling the tourist with
delight, are its lake of pure brine covering 4,000 square miles, and its
25,000 square miles of white deserts and sand plains; its narrow,
fertile valleys with irrigating streams and water tanks, with an orientalized population, half pastoral, half agricultural, and wholly peculiar
and heterogeneous; its long, long wastes, crossed only by winding
trails; the sand storms on the deserts, and the mild air of the valleys-all combining in one's imagination to invest the picture with a
charm which has all the delight of romance, and all the permanence
of reality. It does not seem possible that a region of such interest
should long remain under the blighting domination of an incestuous
priesthood. When the present depression in business is past, and the
mining development continues, this Territory must, ere many years,
reach an annual yield of twenty-five millions in minerals. The result
will be wealth and cultivation, progress and a fixed Gentile population.
Every year there are more permanent settlers, and fewer hasten away
as soon as they have made a fortune. With its favorable climate, and
the physical and intellectual culture to follow this season of moral
storms; with a more homogeneous population and a republican government, the result must eventually be a state of society in Utah which
will cause Mormonism to be forgotten, or remembered only as the
"Stone Age in Art" is remembered by archaeologists.




CHAPTER XII.


A CHAPTER OF BETWEENS.
It was a horrid night. I had never known the severe winter
weather to come on so early in Utah; for " late fall and late spring"
is the weather formula for the mountains. But now the fierce wind
from the great desert was sweeping eastward, bringing with it inky
snow-clouds, an~d sending down into the canions a fierce sleet, which
rendered walking on the mountain trails almost impossible. From
our cabin on the hill the saloon lights in Ophir. City burned bluely,
while every hour increased the storm that gathered strength in Rush
Valley and drove fiercely up the cafion.
There should have been comfort in shelter and warmth; but that
night there was little satisfaction in Teeter's cabin, where a half dozen
of us crouched over the fire and grumbled at our luck. We had just
come down from a day's picking and blasting on Lion Hill. The Ida
Elmore Lode, which one month ago we thought good for a cool million, was now worth about $5 in a flush market; and, as for the Ad
Valorem-well, Teeter said the last time he saw any ore the vein was
about the thickness of a knife-blade, and pitching into the hill nearly
on a level, and as crooked as a worm fence. That meant "no regular
vein-no continuation-no depth," and, consequently, no selling value.
So, as aforesaid, we bewailed our hard luck.
Suddenly out spoke Joe Allkire: " Behold me; I am the Jonah."
He was given to odd figures of speech, but this did not lessen our
surprise; for he -was the quietest, steadiest man of the lot-just the
partner one would have picked out for luck. But he persisted: "Why
the very town I was born in was wiped out-nothing left of it but a
tater patch."
Tell us about it," was the universal request. It was something,
any thing to rid us of unwelcome thought. Joe slowly filled his glass,
seeing that the quart bottle of valley-tan already looked pretty sick;
and
"All were attentive to the warlike man,
When, stretching on his chair, he thus began:"
"Yes, I reckon.I started on the worst streak o' luck in the State of
Illinoy. I took my first shot at daylight in the town o' Union Flats,
(182)




A CHAP TER OF BE TWEENS.


183


and in doin' that I made the big mistake o' my life. The town was
settled by a lot from Botetour, Virginia-folks that said 'bin gone
done it,' and made their women do the milking; and then come some
caow-paling Yanks from C'neticutt, and Quakers from Pennsylvania,
and natives from Indiana, and so they named it Union Flats. It's
flat enough now, but as to the Union-you'll hear my gentle
voice.
" Lemme see; there was first Whig and Democrats-just about an
even divide, and stiffer'n a liberty pole on both sides; but when it
come to 'lectin' a constable, I reckon the fightinest man stood in with
the boys, and as for whisky, wh-e-u-w!  It was sod-corn barefooted.
The valley-tan these Mormons make ain't nowhere. I mind old Mike
Gardner drunk a pint of it, and went home and stole one of his own
plows and hid it in the woods, and didn't know where it was when he
was sober, and had to git drunk agin to find it.
"These was only the common fellers. The good folks was awful religious. The Old School Baptisses never went nigh the Methodis'
meetin' house, and tothers was jist as stiff on thar side; but there was
a sprinkle o' Quakers to soften things, and a little blue spot o' Presbytarans, but not enough for a meetin' house, bein' there was no
more'n six or seven hundred people in the whole place.  So they
was only two meetin' houses, and three or four groceries for whisky and
such, besides Chew's store, which was the only place that sold bourbon-tothers only ' sod-corn.' Then they was Masons and a lot of
Batavy New Yorkers that was agin the Masons, and some agin all secret societies; and along in 1843 come some Millerites, crazier'n loons
about the eend of all things on the 11th o' August,
and pretty soon after come some Washingtonians and  ~ '
dug in agin Chew and the others that sold whisky, so
if a feller wasn't tuck on one side he was on tother.
But the boys soon busted them up, and, no matter what
the prophecies said, the eend didn't come on the 11th,
and things was sort o' dull till these new-fangled notions come in and the Methodis's they set up a choir.
But they was nigh half agin it, and that set up another
meetin' at tother eend o' town, and split folks all up agin. DEACON CHEW.
Then come this nigger business, for it was only forty miles to the Ohio,
and the new meetin' folks got a real cranky little chap from some'eres
East for preacher, and took the abolition shoot, and so all the others
preached on Onesimus, and Hagur, and 'Cussed be Canaan,' and things
got real lively agin.


Or




184


WESTERN WILDS.


" Next thing Misses Chew she split the choir about leadin' in the
singin'; and when a fuss gits among a lot o' singin' folks, you jest bet
it spreads.  She was dognation purty, and slung more style than a
speckled show-horse, and I mind more'n one young fellar that felt like
he'd like to put a spider in old Chew's biscuit. He was purty well
off, and jist doted on her, and brought her shawls and all sorts o'
things from New York; but his face was sort o' weazened up, and the
top of his head gittin' above the timber line, and not so young and
gay as his woman might have wanted him, and that give the other
women in the choir a hold. But I sha'n't dwell; you know what they
said. Then the young fellers that was invited to the Chewses got out
with them that wasn't, and all the folks took sides-and there we was
agin.  You see folks in
o  these little towns is so
t  farmer is                     neighborly. They stand,  by their friends in a
fuss-you hear my
racket?
______                      "Well, one day Joe
-,,,-               Tucker, a long, gaunt-lin' mud-mummy, was
slungin' along the street
with a long, lean yaller
I O                   dog that allers follered
"THEY BROKE LOOSE AND LIT OUT DOWN THE STREET.  him  every-where, and
come by where a farmer was unloadin' some wood, an' quicker'n wink
the farmer's big bull-dog pitched into Joe's, and knocked him four
rod, and so scared Bob Stevenses', the blacksmith's, wife, that was a
takin' her man his dinner, that she yelled for all that was out, and
keeled over agin the wagon, and her old sun-bonnet a floppin' off and
her a yellin' scared the horses so they broke loose and lit out down
the street, like the devil a beatin' tan-bark, and run agin a ladder
where was John Baker a paintin' the up front of Abraham Miller's
store, and knocked down the ladder, crippled poor John for life, and upset the wood into Burnstein's oyster cellar, killin' one of Burnstein's
children stone dead, and so scared Misses Burnstein that she dropped a
pan o' hot oysters into the lap of a customer, and set him to swearin'
and dancin' like all possessed.
"Well, I reckon if there was any one thing Joe Tucker did love, it
was that same long, lean, yaller and spotted dog; they was more like
twins than Christians, and folks did say they.slept together in that lit



A CHAPTER OF BETWEENS.


185


tie den back of Joe's gun-shop. So as soon as he conceited what was
up, he gathered a dornick, and was just drawin' back to send the
strange dog where they's no fleas, when the stranger saw him and
went one better. He had a fist like the hand o' Providence, and when
it landed behind Joe's ear some folks thought it was a fresh blast down
at the quarry; even old Chew heard it, an' folks say Joe doubled on
himself twice as he went through Abraham   Miller's big winder.
Well, Miller run out and first tried to stop the dogs, when the stranger
yells out:
"' Let 'em fight!  My dog can whip any dog in town, an' I can
whip the owner.'
"He'd better not a said that last, for just then Bob Stevens run up,
rarin' mad about his wife's scar, and just in time to hear them words,
and 'the next minute he let out that blacksmith's right o' his'n,
and cut a calfs nose on that stranger's jaw.  So they went at it, fist
and skull, and in about four minutes you
couldn't a told that stranger's face from a
map o' this territory, it was so full of red
buttes and black deserts.
"'Friend, perhaps thee is equally mistaken as' to thy dog,' was all that Abraham
Miller said, for he was a real quiet man, but
he did have some pride about his town, so  "AND THY CLINCHED."
he went into the back-yard and onloosed a
regular old English bull that he kept in the store nights, and it was
just beautiful to see that dog go to the relief of Tucker's, an' between
'em they soon put the strange dog to his trumps. As Abraham stood
over 'em to see fair play, the Methodis' preacher come up, and sez he,
' Fie on you, men, citizens of Union Flats, to get up a dog-fight right
in the face of day,' and was raisin' his cane when Abraham gave him
a gentle shove, and he yelled out that he was struck-them Boston
chaps is so tender.
"' I struck thee not, friend,' said Abraham.
" ' You did, sir.'
" But thee draws wrong conclusions.'
"'Sir, you mistake facts.'
'' Thee utters a mendacious assertion.'
" 'You tell an infernal lie,' bawled the preacher, and they clinched.
Well, of course a thin Boston bran-bread chap had no show agin one
o' our corn-fed men, and Abraham was about to mash him, when
most o' the men in town bein' there by this time, the preacher's con



186


WESTERN WILDS.


gregation turned in to help, when Abraham's clerks run in to back
their boss, and in less time'n I tell it in they was six or eight on a
side, fightin' across toward the Court-house, and leavin' a red trail as
they went.  It was jist beautiful to see 'em peel; we don't have any
such fun in Utah.
" But it happened the stranger with the wood was a Mason, and he
had some friends down at Chew's, an' in three minutes after he got
away from Bob he had 'em out in line, and along with 'em old Chewdrunk on his own whisky for a wonder-brandishin' a green ax helve,
and swearin' by the great horn spoon of the Ancient Scottish Rites
__              that he could whip any Morgan man in
-  ~:ll C>               Union Flats or sixty miles round.
HIe'd jest got the words outen his
q fmouth when one of the Batavy New;,,?   Yorkers sez he, 'I don't take that from
-i                 no Morgan killer,' and fetched ole
t      *               Chew one that drapped him. Then
1        hey did have it beautiful.  I reckon
they was about twenty-five Masons in
town, and they lit on the Yorker and
"HALFTHETOWWNTOOKA SHY AT IuM.""HAF THETOWN TOOKA SHYATI." his friends and druv 'em back into Miller's store, when they forted and held! their own, and they daresn't an
anti-mason show hisself.
"But 'twant for long. In jist no time they come up heavy, and
with 'em the folks that was down on the Chewses, and the women
egged on the men, and in fourteen minutes they went through the
Chewses and their party like alkali water through a Johnny raw from
the States. They might a got it stopped then, but old Colonel Darby
galloped into town (his wife was one of the Virginny Mason family),
and he yells out, 'It's all on account of the infernal abolishnists;
they'd out to be druv outer the town, and that gave the thing a new
turn. The new meetin' folks joined in with their preacher, and all
the Darbys yelled to go for the abolishnists, and the last man in town
was in it in three minutes.  Old 'Squire Hooker, the head abolition
man, run outen his house like mad, yellin' for freedom or death, and
it looked like half the town took a shy at him. The dornicks and
brick flew like distraction, and one as big as my fist went through the
winder and into the parlor, where it hit Maria Hooker square in the
bosom, and broke two of Bob Carter's fingers, that was payin' his attentions to her.  The constable rushed in and was jammed through
the jeweler's window, the preacher was knocked clear out o' all like



A CHAPTER OF BET WEENS.


187


ness, and 'Squire Hooker ana a dozen other abolishnists shamefully
whipped.
" By this time the Irish at work on the grade got wind of a free
fight, and they double-quicked into town and lit in generally, and
Miss June Davis's man thought it was a good time to get even with
the Wrights, and about forty fellers concluded to pay off old scores;
and the grand jury that was in session up stairs in the Court-house
come runnin' down, and upset the stove, and in less'n four minutes the
old shell was all ablaze, and the fighters set two or three more houses
afire, and in an hour all the heart of the town was burned out, an' all
the little men badly whipped that hadn't run away;
for the fightin' kept up more or less for three hours,
and never stopped till every body was satisfied.  I?,''
mind well the last man out was little Si Duvall, a
splintery feller with no legs to speak of, and every
body said no account, and that you couldn't make any
thing outen him, 'less it was a preacher or a school- +X
teacher. ~ But they wan't no exemptions in that war, /i
and Si had to go in along with the rest.  You see it
don't take much to start a fuss when they's blood in TIIE SEAT OF WAR.
the air; and an independent people will have their little differences in
the glorious air of the free and boundless West.  An' I reckon they
was fusses settled there that had been runnin' for twenty yearsneighbors that had quarreled about jinin fences, and relatives that had
lawed about settlin' estates, and men that got cheated in hoss tradesevery man got full satisfaction, and the books was squared."
"Is that all?" I asked, seeing that he made a long pause.
"It's all the liquor," said Joe, gazing regretfully at the black bottle
which had held our last supply; "but of the history they's a few more
pints, and at your service."
"Well, the town was half burned up, and its character ruined, and
all the whisky spilt, and the constable and sheriff and 'Squire Hooker
and about fifty more, badly whipped, and the dog that started it all so
chawed up a Chinaman couldn't 'a made him over into chow-clow,
and the row only stopped when a big thunder shower separated the
forces-and then they was peace. But Misses Chew declared she
wouldn't live in no such a heathen country, and they moved back
East, and so the neighborhood lost tone; an' the new preacher, what
was left of him, had a call to go further north, for he 'lowed a man
with one ear chawed off might be ornamental, but couldn't shine in a
pulpit in Southern Illinois; and Abraham Miller was so disgusted




P


188                   WESTERN WILDS.
with himself about breakin' the rules and fightin' that he took to his
bed, and his new store went all to shacks; an' all the abolishnists left,
too, and the Virginny people swore the place had no style about it
anyhow, and they moved, and some o' the houses was hauled off into
the country, and the rest was took by a big fresh, and you won't find
any thing there now but a corn-crib or two. And all that from one
dog-fight.
"But so 'twas nobody from that town ever had any luck, 'cept that
same little splintery Si Duvall. He went off to Oregon and got to be
a lawyer, and went to the legislater, an' was in the big land commission, and jest coined money; but, after all, the luck o' Union Flats
overtook him at last. He up an' married one o' them school-marms
sent out from Boston, and when they took their tower down to Frisco,
she got sea-sick and throwed up all her teeth, that Si thought was so
pretty an' regular; and Si tried for a divorce, and said it was failure
o' consideration an' fraud in the contract, an' not the goods he bargained for at all, but the judge differed with him, an' he had to support her. So you see, boys, my luck's bound to foller me, and until I
leave the outfit you'll strike no horn silver on this hill."
The whisky being exhausted, the conversation now took a more
serious turn. There were accounts of the great "Frazer River Excitement," when the miners rushed off to British Columbia, and most
of them came back minus; of the stampede into Sun River Gulch;
of the Calaveras frauds, and the mob that hanged the perpetratorsfor our miners were men who had tempted fortune in many fields.
There were blood-curdling tales of Indian massacres; sad narrations of
toil and exposure on the cold mountain-side or the wind-swept desert;
and depressing stories of the long, long search for gold which had
still evaded the prospector.  I was particularly struck by one account, given by a weather-beaten mountaineer of sixty years, whose
memory ran back to the time when trappers and hunters constituted
the sole white population west of the Missouri.  As his style was
obscure, I venture to give the story in my own language:
It was the good old time-the grand, good old time-when buffalo by
thousands came within two days' ride of the Missouri; when beaver
dams adorned every stream in the mountains; when the wild horse
ranged from Laramie Plains to the Rio Grande; when the Indians
welcomed the trapper and trader, though they still fought the soldier
and emigrant; and the nomadic plainsman could ride two thousand
miles in a right line without sight of a human habitation. Then
Clear Creek, Colorado, was lively with beaver; then the mountain




A CEAPTE  F BEWEES
A CHAP TEB OF BET WEENS.


189


sheep threaded a hundred trails on the eastern slope; the migration
of the buffalo was as regular and certain as the return of the May
sunshine, and every wooded cafnon invited the hunter to rest and a
gamy feast. The trapper looked upon two parts of the earth as terrestrial paradises: in the Mexican settlements of California, or the
towns on the Rio Grande. When rare good fortune carried him that


" WHERE WARRING TRIBES MET IN PEACE."
way, he could dance, and drink, and make love with the bright-eyed
seforitas; then, when pleasure palled, be off again for the life-giving
air,of the mountain, the cafion and the desert.
These towns were neutral ground, where warring tribes met in
peace, and white and Mexican danced and drank, and danced the jolly




190


WESTERN WILDS.


hours away. The white cross of the chapel, without which no Mexican town can be called a pueblo, spoke peace to all; the priest joined
heartily in all the sports, and stood ready to grant extreme unction if
aguardiente and gambling resulted in fatal " accidents."  On the
plaza, every die de fiesta, was gathered a motly crowd: the plains
Indian exhibited his wild horsemanship; the senorita coquettishly
flaunted her rebosa before the admiring hunter; the Mexican lost his
all or won a little fortune at monte, and even the boys took their first
lesson by pitching for quartillas.
St. Louis the trapper must sometimes visit, to sell the proceeds
of his hunting and lay in supplies; but it was not his choice to
linger there long.  How could he contentedly tread the pavements
who had trod the green turf of the prairie? how could he rejoice in
city air, having breathed the sweet air of the mountains? His gains
were often great. More than one trapper has realized two thousand
dollars from the proceeds of a single season. Tifese were spent with
reckless generosity, and then he was off again to range from Huerfano
to the Yellowstone, and from the Black Hills to the Salt Lake. Such
a time it was, when Will and Bob McAfee set out from San Luis Park
to make a hurried trip to St. Louis.
It was their year of good fortune, and they hurried down the Arkansas to cash their wealth of furs and return before the late mild
autumn should give place to the biting winter of the plains. With
what joy the returning plainsman hails the first sight of heavy timber!
Will and Bob had got far enough down the river to find dense groves,
and in one of these, late in October, they prepared to camp fpr the
night. But Will, the older and more experienced, grew strangely
nervous at sight of the dead trees standing so thickly among the
live ones, and called attention to the fact that the river bluffs came in
close to the stream, and rose almost perpendicular; in fact, that this
was a cation rather than a valley.
"Bob, do you see these dead trunks, and the way this gorge opens
east and west-and it's the time for storms now-d'ye remember what
father once told us about such a place as this?"
"' Git out," said Bob, "no old stories now. Don't ketch me campin'
out on the perrairie to-night."
Will yielded, but his heart was heavy with forebodings of danger;
their evening was dull, despite the jocular style and sprightly sallies
of Bob, who recounted the pleasures of a brief stay in'St. Louis. The
animals were picketed, and the trappers lay down wrapped in their
blankets, each upon a pile of dry bark, which served them here in



A CHAPTER OF BETWEENS.


191


stead of their mountain bed of pine boughs. They slept the sound,
sweet sleep of tired men whose only nurse was nature; pure air and
water their stimulants. Suddenly, said Bob, in the only account he
ever gave of it, "We were raised by a roar as if heaven and earth
were coming together."  He sprang up bewildered. The heavens
were lit'by the glare of lightning; the next instant inky blackness
succeeded, and then thunder, which shook the foundation of the neighboring hills. The autumn storm had come with unusual suddenness
and force, and they were in the mouth of a natural tunnel.
For a few minutes the air was comparatively calm, while the electric
glare illumined the grove, and thunder rendered conversation impossible. For an instant there was silence, and after it a great moving
mountain of air swept down the gorge, and then the wind and rainstorm was upon them in all its fury. Bob felt himself hurled backward, but with the instinct of self-preservation sprang behind an
immense green tree, whose spreading roots seemed to bid defiance to
the blast. He screamed with all the force of his lungs to Bill, but
there was no response. The dead trees snapped like pipe-stems; the
rain and wind drowned his loudest cries. He saw that two dead
trunks had fallen on either side of the tree that sheltered him; but
only noted that this added to his safety, and redoubled his cries for
his brother. But no answer.
In two hours the storm ceased almost as suddenly as it had risen,
and daylight showed the fearful ruin it had wrought. The forest of
yesterday was a tangled, almost impassable jungle. Only a few of the
largest trees still stood. Bob gazed around him, marveling at his
safety, then shouted with all his strength for Will. There was a
faint, mournful response from somewhere near; it seemed almost under
his feet. He climbed hurriedly over the logs about him, and shouted
again.  Again came that feeble response.  His heart gave a great
bound, and then stood still.  That was not the voice of the deepchested and lusty mountaineer of yesterday; it was rather the moan of
a sick woman or fretful child. Again came the faint call, this time in
words.
" Bob, for God's sake, come.'
In a shallow ravine before him was his brother. But what a sight!
Will lay upon his back, alive and conscious; but his legs were crushed
beneath an enormous trunk, which pinned him to theearth.
Bob sprang forward and madly tugged at the weight, which would
have resisted the united strength of hundreds. The imprisoned hunter
smiled, then groaned with a sudden spasm of pain.




192


WESTERN WILDS.


"Bring me some water, Bob, and listen to the few words I can
speak."
Refreshed by the draught, he went on:
"Do you love me, Bob?"
The stalwart, unwounded man sobbed like a child.
" Would you do me the greatest favor man can do another? Would
you hurt your own heart for me; Would you save me days and
nights of misery? 'Cause, if you would, Bob, there's jist one thing
for you to do." And he laid his hand upon the pistol in Bob's belt.
"Oh, don't say that, Bill. For the Lord's own sweet sake, don't
say that. Any thing else. I'll start now and bring help."
"Help! " said Will, with the faintest touch of sarcasm in his faltering tones; " help; the nearest white man's three hundred miles away,
and where *' d I be by the time ye got back? Don't ye see I can't
live?"
"But I will get the ax and chop the log off ye; I'll get ye out."
"No use, Bob, no use. It's only a matter of how and when I'll go
under. Can't you see I'm rubbed out? I've pinked my last buff'ler
-I've set the last trap in this world. Would you let me lay here
days and days and suffer ten thousand deaths? No, Bob, do as I bid
ye. Don't be chicken-hearted. Jest one ball from that pistol-and
right in the head, Bob, right in the head. Oh, dear boy, why won't
you help me?"
The uninjured brother sank trembling on the ground; clasped Will
around the neck, and with strong, crying tears begged the sufferer to
spare him this.
"Brother," said the wounded man, a strange, tremulous sweetness
in his voice, "do you mind the days when we played among the limestone hills in old Kaintuck-and what our grandfather McAfee told
us about the Injun troubles when he was young-an' the kind o' blood
there was in our family? Do ye mind it, Bob? Ain't the blood there
yit? I ain't afeared to die, but think o' layin' here, or anywhere else,
an' dyin' by inches! I'm right in the head now-soon I'll be in a
fever, an' then-but you'll help me out, Bob, won't you? No one
will ever blame ye. I ask it; I, your brother, beg it of ye-the last
favor ye can do me." And he struggled to raise the pistol with his
own hands, then sank back exhausted, his gaze turned imploringly to
his brother.
*       *      *       *      ~IS     *      *       *      *
The awful conference was over, and the deed was done. Will
McAfee lay dead with a ball in his brain, sent there by his broth



P


A CHAPTER OF BET WEENS.                  193
er's hand, and Bob fled from the spot, unable to look upon his work.
But it was not an act, however justified by mountain ethics, which the
doer could blot from his memory. The light-hearted mountaineer
returned to his former haunts a morose and gloomy man. His associates, one and all, excused the deed; it was what they would have
done in like circumstances. "But woe, woe, unutterable woe, to those
who spill life's sacred stream." That instinct is too deeply implanted
in the human breast.
Bob grew solitary in his habits, and finally disappeared. Ten years
afterwards a party of hunters penetrated one of the many obscure and
difficult cations that open westward from the Saguache Range, and to
their astonishment came upon the rude cabin of a hermit. Within
they found an occupant who neither moved nor spoke at their approach. Long, snow-white hair and beard nearly concealed an aged
face, on which the rugged lines and leathery skin seemed the marks of
a century of suffering. His sunken, unwinking eyes gazed into vacancy, his form so still that the astonished hunters could not be certain
that he lived till one laid hand upon his arm. Then starting suddenly from his seat, the hermit cried:
" He is dead, he is dead, and I soon shall follow him!" and with
all the strength of his rheumatic limbs the unhappy parricide sought
to push them from the living tomb.
But contact with men brought health to his mind, and the only
remaining week of his life was one of peace and resignation. Cheered
by the kind ministrations of the hunters, Bob McAfee sank to rest,
and the unfortunate brothers were reunited, let us hope, in a land
where motives are judged as well as conduct.
13




CHAPTER XIII.


OKLAHOMA.
THE year 1872 opened with a revival of interest in the Atlantic
and Pacific Railroad, otherwise known as the Thirty-fifth Parallel
Route. This road was already completedfrom St. Louis to Vinita, in
the Indian Territory, and was to run thence westward to the Rio
Grande, and through a succession of valleys and passes, nearly on the
line of the thirty-fifth parallel, to California, terminating at San Francisco. That city and St. Louis had struck hands on the project;
thirty-five million dollars had been pledged; it was the era of speculative railroad construction, and we were promised an early completion
of the line. I determined to traverse the proposed route-or as much
of it as possible-on horseback, and give the world an impartial report.
Bonneville, the early explorer, immortalized by the genius of Irving,
had confidently named this as the best route; Kit Carson had been
earnest in its favor, and Government early had it surveyed. But
Fremont's work made the nation more familiar with the northern
route; the war came, and the South lost her chance. With the return
of peace both southern lines were aided by grants of land; but; Tom
Scott's Texas Pacific has again got the start.
Spring was just tinging the prairies with a pale green when I entered the country of the Cherokees, and soon after crossing Grand
River passed a heavy wooded strip, and in the next prairie found the
terminus town of Vinita. Here the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad crosses the A. &'P., and here we should naturally expect to see a
place. In Kansas or Nebraska we should see a city with lots selling
at from one hundred to two thousand dollars, dwellings and stores
going up on every hand, one or two live journals blowing the place as
the " future metropolis of the boundless West, the last great chance for
profitable investment," etc., and a dozen streets lively with the rattle
of commerce. Here, we see nothing. We feel the dead calm of stagnation; we breathe the atmosphere of laziness. There is one tolerable
hotel, one stone store, and two frame ones, kept respectively by a
Cherokee and a Delaware; and, besides the railroad employes, there
(194)




OKLAHOMA.


195


is a population of perhaps a hundred-a few good men, more shiftless
whites, average Indians, and suspicious-looking half-breeds.
For five weeks I wandered about the Indian Territory, a pleasant
sort of half wilderness for a Bohemian to recreate in. Here are pureblooded Aborigines who are something more than hunters and root-diggers; here are republican governments run on aboriginal principles, with
aboriginal official titles, and such a
mixture of races as affords a fine
field for the ethnologist.  One
meets with some awkward surprises,
with facts that unsettle a great deal
we had considered settled. A region half as large as Ohio (excluding the sand-hills and deserts) has  J             -
some 60,000 inhabitants: a people                      -
rich in flocks and herds, enjoying  "
9           "FINE FIELD FOR THE ETHNOLOGIST."
themselves in a simple, pastoral
way, content with their mode of life, and indifferent to the rush and
struggle of more artificial societies. One may travel for hundreds of
miles on the public roads and never see a full-blooded Indian; yet
such are in the majority, as shown by the census. They usually live
off the roads and in the timber along the streams.
The mild warmth of a March Sabbath in that latitude led me to
make an excursion down Cabin Creek to a log church and schoolhouse, where I found a congregation of fifty-two persons. There
were all shades, from African black to pure white with blue eyes and
flaxen hair. There were families of half a dozen each, representing
three or four types of the half-breed. One very intelligent gentleman told me he had a family of nine-of just nine different shadesfrom  pure white to almost pure Indian.  His first wife was half
Shawnee, from Canada, and her first husband a full-blood Cherokee,
the three children of that union being rather dark. By this woman
he had four children, only quarter blood, but varying greatly in complexion. After her death he married a blonde Irish woman; they
had two children, one a clear-skinned, freckled, blue-eyed Celt, the
other dark enough to pass for a "White Cherokee."
"It's singular how it will come back in -this country," he explained. "I 've known 'em to have regular Injun children after two
generations of nearly white, and children of pure white people born
here are often very dark. I know two White Cherokees, married,
that you couldn't tell either of 'em from a regular white person, and




196


WESTERN WILDS.


they've a whole family of nearly half-bloods.  Old Injuns say it
comes back on 'em sometines after people have done forgot they had
any Injun blood in 'em." Even so Europeans resident in Asia often
have children that look like little Asiatics.
Our preacher was a white man, but a citizen of the Cherokee Nation; and the society was Baptist, as are a majority of Cherokee
Christians. The Methodists, Presbyterians, Moravians, and Episcopalians also have churches in the Territory. The Senecas alone, of
all the located tribes, retain their aboriginal heathenism. That entire
tribe numbered then but ninety persons, including one baby. They
occupy a township in the north-eastern part of the Cherokee country,
where sacrifices, incantations, and a separate priesthood arc still maintained. They stroke their faces to the moon, and once a year burn a
certain number of dogs to propitiate the spirit of evil. These, with
offerings of fruits, serve them instead of incense and holy water.
Traveling northward through the Cherokee country, I reached the
Kansas line at Chetopa, and with amazing suddenness passed from a
wilderness to a thickly settled country.  From east to west, far as
the eye can see, extends a marked line of division between State and
"Nation:" on the south an unbroken prairie, on the north farms,
orchards, neat dwellings, and thriving villages. If one side of Broadway should utterly vanish, leaving a vacant plain, the other side remaining as it is, the contrast could scarcely be greater. It is a powerful argument, and one in constant use in favor of congressional action
to open the Territory to white settlement. Thence, after a short visit,
I took the southward train on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad,
having meanwhile been joined by Mr. C. G. De Bruler, of the Cincinnati Times. The road was then completed but ninety miles into the
Territory, and at midnight we stopped at the new town of Muscogee,
in the Muskokee or Creek Nation.
We opened our eyes next morning upon a long, straggling, miserable railroad town, the exact image of a Union Pacific "city," in
the last stages of decay. Some two hundred yards from the railroad,
a single street extended for nearly a quarter of a mile; the buildings
were rude shanties, frame and canvas tents, and log cabins, open to
the wind, which blew a hurricane for the thirty-six hours we were
there. If Mr. Lo, "the poor Indian," does in fact "see God in the
clouds and hear Him in the wind," as the poet tells us, he has a simple
and benign creed which gives him an audible and ever-present deity
in this country, for the wind is constant and of a character to prevent
forgetfulness. The weather is mild and pleasant enough, but walking




OKLAHOMA.


197


against the wind is very laborious, and the howling so constant as to
make conversation difficult inside a tent.  I have observed in my
travels that windy countries are generally healthful, but a different
report is given here. ~ They say bilious diseases of all kinds prevail,
and complain particularly of fever, ague, and pneumonia.
We ate in the "Pioneer Boarding Car," and slept in another car
attached; five of them being placed on a side track, anchored down,
and converted into a pretty good hotel. Here, and about the depot,
were the citizens employed on the road. Of the town proper, a majority of the citizens were negroes, formerly slaves to the Indians.
Slavery here was never severe, and they are little more their own
masters than before. They earn a precarious subsistence, the women
by washing and the men by teaming and chopping, and were all
sunk deep, deep in poverty and ignorance. All day the wenches
were strolling about in groups, bareheaded, barefooted, half naked,
stupid-looking, ragged, and destitute.  But all around them was
nature's wealth, needing only industry to create plenty. Fertile prairies, even now rivaling Ohio meadows in May, rolled away for miles
to the north and east; beyond them the heavy line of timber marked
the course of the Arkansas.
The records of Muscogee are bloody. During the five weeks the
terminus business and stage offices were there and at Gibson, sixteen
murders were committed at these two places, and in a very short time
five men were killed at the next terminus. One man was shot all to
pieces just in front of the dining-car at Muscogee, and another had
his throat cut at night, almost in the middle of the town. It is true,
strangers, travelers, and outsiders are rarely if ever troubled. These
murders are upon their own class, and new-comers who are weak
enough to mix in, drink and gamble with them. But a few days
before our arrival, a Texan reached Canadian Station with the proceeds of a cattle sale. He met these fellows at night, was seen at 10
o'clock with them, drunk and generous with his money; a few days
after his body was washed ashore some miles down the Canadian.
And yet I am assured, and believe it, a man with a legitimate business, who will let whisky alone, can travel through this Territory as
safely as any other. The visitor can not always feel as certain of this
as he would like to. The night " Brick" Pomeroy reached Muscogee
three men were shot dead. "Brick" walked from the train to the diningcar, and spent the night; walked thence to the earliest morning train
and left the Territory.
After two days at this lively town, we concluded we had better see




198                    WESTERN WILDS.
the Creeks at home, and started afoot for the Agency, traveling over a
beautiful, rich prairie, gently rolling, rising from the river into long
ridges, which occasionally terminated in sharp bluffs, crowned with
pretty groves. The prospect was delightful by nature, and not a little
enlivened by the numerous herds of cattle cropping the rich herbage.
The tasty groves, the high prairie, and the slow-moving herds, with
an occasional group of horses, produced the exact likeness of an old and
wealthy estate, with pretty parks and stock grazing about the lawns
and meadows. Eight or ten miles west of Muscogee, we entered a
region of rude log-cabins and gaunt farm stock, where black faces
peered at us through the cracks of "worm fences," and occasional
' free nigger" patches showed something like civilization. A colored
girl replied, in answer to our queries, "Agency over thar," and a mile
further brought us to a beautiful grove, in which was an irregular
square of log-cabins, including some three or four acres. We saw
no signs of Government buildings, and but one neat, commodious
house. There we were directed to a double log building, corresponding to those of the poorest farmers in Indiana, some distance from the
square in a field, and that we found to be the Agency.
The place is overrun by freedmen. A continuous line of settlements, with '" patches " rather than farms, extends for ten miles along
the Arkansas, with a population of perhaps a thousand freedmen and
a hundred Creeks. Only the poorest and lowest of the Indians live
among the blacks, but there has been more amalgamation in this
than in any other tribe. The pure Creeks differ noticeably from the
Cherokees.  They are shorter, broader, and rather darker; without
the high cheek bones and solemn gravity of the others, and with a
more cheerful and kindly expression. The white traders say they are
more industrious than the Cherokees, but less intelligent. Their
history is an aboriginal romance. They long ago occupied a district
far west of the Mississippi, whence they slowly moved eastward and
northward-a nation of predatory warriors. Just before them were
the Alabamas. The two fought at every encounter, and the latter
invariably retreated. Thus they fought through Arkansas and Missouri, then across the Mississippi and Ohio, then through Kentucky
and Tennessee, and into Alabama. Here tradition says the old chief
and prophet of the foremost tribe, supposing the Creeks would not
follow them, struck his standard into the earth and shouted: "Alabah-ma-Ala-bah-ma! "-"  Here we rest! Here we rest!"
But the Creeks were soon upon them, and finally conquered and
absorbed them, as they did all they conquered, if the vanquished had




OKLAHOMA.


199


fought well. In this manner they have also adopted the remnants of
the Uchees, Natchees, and Hitchitees; and these, with the Alabamas,
still have separate towns and distinct languages in the Creek Nation.
They continued eastward, and after a long and bloody war with the
Cherokees, in which neither nation could conquer the other, made a
peace which has never been broken, and turned southward. In the
war of 1812, a portion of the tribe who joined the British were
driven into exile, taking the name of Seminoles (Say-me-no-lays),
meaning "outcasts." These, joined with fugitive slaves from Georgia and the Carolinas, became a separate nation, and long maintained
a desperate war with the whites amid the swamps and glades of
Florida. Both nations, after years of trouble and broken treaties,
with many transactions which reflect no credit upon the United States
officials, were finally sent to this country during the administrations
of John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.
The government of the Creek Nation is republican in form; the entire " constitution" and laws are printed in a small pamphlet of less
than twenty pages. The law-making power is vested in a House of
Kings and a House of Warriors; the members of each are elected
for four years, by general vote of all the male Creeks over eighteen
years of age.  Each of the forty towns sends one member to the
House of Kings; to the House of Warriors one, and an additional
member for each two hundred citizens.  The Kings elect their own
President, the Warriors their own Speaker-in-Council; each house
elects its own interpreter, and all speeches made in English are forthwith rendered aloud into Creek, and vice versa. The records are kept
in English.
The Executive of the Nation is styled the Principal Chief, his Vice
the Second Chief; they also are elected for four years each, and thus
the entire Government is liable to a complete change at each election,
The Judiciary begins with the High Court, which consists of five
persons, chosen by the Council for four years. They have original
jurisdiction in all cases involving over one hundred dollars, and appellate jurisdiction from lower courts in criminal matters. The Nation is divided into six districts, in each of which a judge is elected
by the qualified voters; he has jurisdiction of all cases involving sums
under one hundred dollars, and local criminal jurisdiction.  Of
course, with such a brief and simple criminal code, there is much left
to the discretion of the judge, and, as far as a white man can see, he
seems to have almost absolute power. The death penalty is often inflicted. Each district elects a "light horse company," consisting of




200


WESTERN WILDS.


one lieutenant and four privates; these act as sheriff and deputies under
orders of the District Courts, and are subject to a general call from the
Principal Chief to execute the mandates of the High Court, or suppress extensive disorders. In hundreds of instances these light-horse
companies and the District Judge simply make the law as they go,
calling court on each particular case, following the statute if there is
one, and if not, assigning such penalty as in their judgment fits the
case.  The laws are singularly plain and unambiguous.  No space is
wasted in definitions, it being taken for granted, apparently, that
every body knows the meaning of such terms as "steal" and
" murder."
After a few days at the Agency, where we were handsomely entertained, and assisted in our researches by Major J. G. Vor6 and his assistant, Mr. A. S. Purinton, who were in charge, we determined to
visit the Tallahassee Mission, a sort of high school for the Creeks.
Starting afoot, Mr. De Bruler and I soon reached the Arkansas, and,
after half an hour's vigorous shouting, the ferryman came over, with
two negroes. A sudden storm drove us to the nearest hut. A bright
mulatto soon appeared, who informed us that he was a slave to the
Creeks "afoh de wah; run away and went off den, which I larnt
Ingliss, sah." So, with him for interpreter, we succeeded in an hour
in extracting half a dozen remarks from Charon the Silent, as we
named the determinedly reticent Creek. The storm passed, and we
were set across the river, for which Charon demanded "pahly-hokkohlen hoonunvy, pahly osten "-rendered by our linguist to mean
"twenty cents a man-forty cents all."  This we disbursed, and footed
it across the bottom over a road rendered very toilsome by the rain.
At dark, splashed and weary, we reached the Mission, which is beautifully situated in an open grove, appearing to us a very haven of
rest-fitting emblem of the faith and hope which planted it in this
wilderness.
There we spent a most delightful Sabbath, entertained by the Superintendent, Rev. W. S. Robertson, and family. This mission has
been thirty years in existence, and has educated all the leading men
of the Creek Nation. The teachers are selected and paid by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions; the material interests are looked
after by the Nation, which sends a boy and girl from each of the
forty towns, a new one being selected for every departure.  Supper
was called soon after our arrival; we took "visitors' chairs," and
watched with much interest the orderly incoming of some seventy
young Creeks, of every age from eight to twenty-two. Nearly all




OKLAHOMA.


201


were pure bloods, and the whole scene was a revelation to me. I had
seen the savage-painted Indian, and the miserable vagabond on the
white frontier; but the civilized, scholarly Indian boy and girl presented a new sight. Supper over, a chapter was read, and the school
united in prayers and a devotional hymn. Then we were invited to
hear classes, who volunteered an evening recitation for our benefit.
Their natural talent is surprising, particularly in drawing and figures. Every Creek boy seems to know the law of outline by instinct.
In figures they are very
quick; in reading not so                       i
apt. Creek and English     a
being the only languages
used at the Mission, every
Uchee, Natchee, or Alabama pupil has to learn
a new   language before
his education proper begins.
Like  the  common
school system of our own
people, this school tends
to break down tribal prejudice, and make the people homogeneous. Two
Uchee boys, of the reading class, conversed awhile
in that language at my
request.  It is entirely         -
devoid of labials; for five  SLEM-LEM-AN-DAH-MOCH-WAHER."
minutes they touched the lips together but once.  It also rarely requires the dentals; and thus to a Uchee it is almost impossible to distinguish between b and p, d and t, or a and e.  This inability produces most ludicrous results in spelling.  Pronouncing the words to
be spelled orally, the teacher can not possibly determine in the quick
sound whether the spelling is correct or not-that is, with Uchee
beginners. But, when they come to write it on the slate, bat becomes
p-e-t, hat h-e-d, bad b-e-t, etc.  The Creeks are lively and affectionate, but their original language does not contain a single term of endearment. iom; mShave been adopted from the English, others formed
by combini   p mitive words in their own tongue. The word for
sweetheart haefght syllables-a nice jawbreaker to murmur in, a




202


WESTERN WILDS.


maiden's ear by moonlight. Love (between the sexes) is slem-lem-andah-mouch-wah-ger.   A girl must be delighted to hear a fellow say
he has a good deal of that for her.
Mr. Robertson, with the aid of an interpreter, 'has adapted our
alphabet to the language, and published a series of books with translations of many of our hymns. These we heard at the Mission Sabbath School, which was also a delightful surprise in its way. I felt
all the enthusiasm of the occasion when the seventy sweet voices, led
by Miss Robertson with an organ, took up the strain of "Shall we
gather at the River?" in the Creek. Here is the first verse:
BEAUTIFUL RIVER.
Uerakkon teheceyvr haks
Cesvs em estolke fullan
Cesvs liket a fihnet os
Hoyayvket fihnet os.
CHORUs-Momos mon teheceyvres
Uerakko herusen escherusen
Mekusapvlken etohkv liket
Fulleye munkv tares.
C is pronounced as ch in child, e as i in pin, v as short u; y between
two vowels unites with the preceding one to form a diphthong, and
with the latter is pronounced as y; a is pronounced ah as in father,
and all other letters as in English.
Thence we continued our survey of the Creek country by leisurely
journeys among the farmers. The soil is generally fertile, while
almost every dwelling is the center of a beautiful grove of fruit trees,
at that season green with springing leaves, or white and red with
blossoms, giving off the sweet scents of advancing spring. The
people as a rule are simple, civil and hospitable; the Nation contains
several churches aggregating a thousand members. But the natural
tendency, as with other Indians, is towards a sort of fatalism.
Among all the races in the Territory conjurers are found, and the
testimony is universal that they never fail to cure snake-bites. There
is not a dissenting statement from white, black or red! If you ask
the more intelligent how they explain it, the answer generally is.
"I don't explain it; I don't believe in conjuration; I only know the
cure is certain." The conjurer uses no medicine but a small leaf of
tobacco or other plant, which he holds upon his tongue while pro,
nouncing the charm. He applies it then to the bite, pressing it
smartly with the ball of his thumb, and in less than twenty-four
hours the patient is entirely well.
At noon of a bright April day we return to the railroad at Mus



OKLAHOMA.                        203
cogee, to find matters worse than ever. As we sit down to dinner in
the boarding-car, a half-blood Creek, crazy with smuggled whisky, is
galloping up and down the row, brandishing a huge revolver, and
threatening death to all opponents. At one moment he rides his
horse into a shop, emerges the next, and gallops upon a group of
wenches, who scatter with a chorus of screams. A file of soldiers
from a detachment on the road appear on the scene, arrest and disarm
him, and the town returns to its normal condition of listlessness and
idle chatter. Severe penalties are prescribed against selling whisky
in the Territory, and that which is smuggled in, is the vilest compound
known to the trade, familiarly called "tarantula juice," from the
deadliest insect in the country. And this reminds me of the appropriate names for intoxicating liquors, which have been evolved by a
riotous Western fancy. Nobody says: "WVill you take a drink?"
At Chicago they say: "Name your family disturbance."  At Omaha:
" Nominate your poison."  At Cheyenne: " Will you drive a nail in
your coffin?"  At Salt Lake: "Well, shall we irrigate?"  At Virginia City: "Shall we lay the dust?"  But in Arizona and the more
southern Territories the universal formula is: " Let's nip some tarantula juice." Such are the pleasing metaphors wherewith the frontiersman invites to refreshment.
The railroad was pushing southward as fast as a small army could
lay track, to meet the Texas Central, which was in like manner pushing northward toward Red River. From Muscogee we traversed the
last section then built, to the main Canadian River. Between the two
Canadians was the passenger terminus, near the Old Methodist Mission; and here we pause a few hours. Dusty and travel-worn pilgrims
are coming in from all points in Western Texas, and spruce, clean
looking people from civilization, starting out on long and toilsome
journeys through the sandy plains between here and the Rio Grande.
Thence to Main Canadian we traverse a dense forest; all the point
between the two rivers is heavily timbered, and choked with underbrush. The main stream is now wide and rapid, apparently thick
with red mud and sand; but after standing a few minutes, it is sweet
enough to the taste, and close examination shows the stream to be tolerably clear, the red showing through the water from the bottom.
We observed, with some nervousness, that Brad Collins, a "White
Cherokee" desperado, with a dozen of his retainers had come down
on our train. Soon the smuggled whisky they brought begun to take
effect, and half a dozen young half-breeds were galloping about town,
firing pistols in the air, and yelling like demons. My companion




204


WESTERN WILDS.


took a brief look, and suggested: " This is a devilish queer place,
let's get out of it." I was glad I had waited for him to speak first,
but promptly acquiesced; and we crossed the Canadian into the
Choctaw Nation, and spent the day with Tandy Walker, Esq. This
gentleman, nephew of Ex-Governor Walker of the Choctaws, is nearly
white, and strongly in favor of throwing open the Territory to white
settlement. Once a leading man, he is now politically ostracized for
his opinions. And here I may as well present a view of the party
divisions which have caused so much trouble and some bloodshed in
this Territory. It is a "Territory" only in a geographical sense,
not being governed under an organic act like Utah or Montana. It
was set apart by Act of Congress of May 28, 1830, and each Indian
nation has its own government. The proposition, before Congress
ever since the war, is to organize it into the "Territory of Oklahoma," (a Cherokee compound signifying the "Red men's State")
and throw it open to white settlers. Hence the three parties among
the Indians:
First-the Territorial party: in favor of Oklahoma and white immigration, after setting apart, in fee simple, a considerable farm to
each Indian.
Second-the Ockmulkee Constitution party: in favor of sectionizing the land, giving each Indian his farm and the two railroads their
grant, keeping all the rest in common as it is now, and uniting all
the tribes under one government of their own (the Ockmulkee Constitution), with American citizenship and local courts; but no territorial arrangement and no white settlement.
Third-the party in favor of the present condition.
On further examination I found that the first party was very small
among all the nations, and that the members of it were regarded as
traitors to their race; that the third party had as yet a large majority
of the whole people, but that the Ockmulkee Constitution promised
most for the Indians, and had the support of their most able men.
The Choctaws number 16,000, the Chickasaws 6,000; the two constitute one nation, the citizens of either tribe having equal rights in
all respects. Their country lies between the Main Canadian and Arkansas, and is two hundred miles from east to west: an area equal to
two or three New England States, the eastern third very fertile, the
center good for timber and pasture, the western part running into the
flinty hills and barren plains. The citizens are more advanced in
civilization than the Creeks; they enforce their laws much better,
particularly in cases where whites or half-breeds are concerned.




OKLAHOMA.


205


With their sporadic population timber increases yearly, game is
abundant and cheap, common pasturage is plenty, and cattle are
grown at a costoof from three to eight dollars per head. The Choctaws were immensely wealthy before the war.  Single herders numbered their cattle by thousands.  The average wealth was twice as
great as that of any purely agricultural community in the States, and
golden ornaments of every sort were profusely displayed on horses,
carriages, and the Indians' persons. The amount of fine clothes and
jewelry sold by traders here at that time seems incredible. The war
swept them clean; literally broke up and ruined them, leaving nothing but the land. Before the war Mr. Walker was accounted a millionaire. He began again, in 1865, with fifty dollars and one saddle-mule.
He was ahead of his neighbors only in this: his fifty dollars were in
greenbacks, theirs were in Confederate notes.  Those who "went
South" were even worse ruined than those who "took the Federal
side." Some died of grief and despair, on returning home in 1865.
But most went resolutely to work, and are once more prospering.
But many years will be required for those vast herds of cattle to
be renewed.   This neighborhood has every sign of a prosperous
community of civilized farmers. On the whole, I rather like the
Choctaws.
We soon returned to Muscogee, and on the afternoon of a sultry
day set out to walk to Fort Gibson. Three miles brought us upon
the old cattle trail from Texas to Kansas City, where we were soon
overtaken by a grizzled and weather-beaten old Texan, who politely
asked us to take a seat in his wagon. Eyeing our valises suspiciously,
he asked:
"Got any whisky in them?"
" No," was the answer, with expressed regrets.
CEf ye had, ye'd walk, you bet; would n't have you get in here
with one pint of whisky for five hundred dollars! "
This radical temperance platform in this latitude excited our astonishment, and we called for an explanation.  He gave it: "A burnt
child dreads the fire. One pint, yes, one dram o' whisky 'd cost me
this hull load. These deputy marshals-d-n the thievin' rascals, I
say-they '11 search y'r wagon any minit; and if they find one drop,
away goes the hull load to Fort Smith, and d-n the haight of it d'y
ever see again. One trip a nice lookin' chap enough asked me to
ride. He got in, and pretty soon pulled a flask. ' Drink,' says he.
' After you,' says I. Well, in less 'n ten minutes comes the marshals
and grabbed us. If they find a drop even on a man as is ridin' with




206


WESTERN WILDS.


you, they take every thing, and nary dollar do you ever git. Why,
that feller was in with 'em, of course. They seize every thing they
can git a pretense for, and then divide. There won't any body but a
scamp or a rough take such an office as deputy marshal in this
country.  They're all on the make, and in with these roughs.
That's what I say."
Three miles with our slightly rebellious Texan friend brought us to
the Arkansas River, and to a steam ferry-boat. At the mouth of
Grand River, is the head of navigation on the Arkansas. Steamers
run up the Grand River, which has backwater from the Arkansas,
three miles or more, and land at Fort Gibson. By a series of dams
and locks, like those on Green River, Kentucky, I am convinced the
Arkansas could have slack-water navigation a hundred miles or more
above this. The waters of Grand River and those of the Arkansas
show like two broad bands, one misty blue and the other dirty red
and yellow, in the main channel as far as we can see below their junction. The two streams, the clear and the muddy, run side by side
for nearly twenty miles, when a series of riffles and sharp turns
mingles them freely in a fluid of pale orange tint.
At Fort Gibson we found quarters at the usual double-log-house
hotel, kept by a Pennsylvania Dutchman, with a "White Cherokee"
wife; and there we met Judge Vann, Hon. A. Rattling Gourd, and
other prominent Cherokees. This is a rather handsome town for the
border, with several neat brick and frame houses. After a few days'
study of local politics, we concluded more was to be learned at
the capital, and started afoot for Tahlequah. The distance is twentytwo miles, which we must divide in two journeys. "Better stop at
Widow Skrimshee's over night; got a good house and a white son-inlaw; 'taint but fifteen miles there," said our new friends. So, valise
on shoulder, we started for the widow's, through a beautiful and wellimproved country for the first six miles.  The log-houses here are
superior in style to those in most new countries, being high, neatly
squared at the corners, and well shingled. There are few frames.
The improvements are much finer than among the Creeks, and about
equal to those of the Choctaws. From rolling prairie we descended
into a broad valley with heavy timber. From the open and windy
plain to this grove was like going from pleasant April to sultry July.
Our valises seemed to weigh a hundred each; our clothing dripped
with sweat, and we were soon exhausted by fatigue. We turned aside
to the residence of a "White Cherokee "-the usual double-log-house
with porch between-where we lay prostrate in the passage, smoked




OKLAHOMA.


207


a pipe of his "home raisin'," and " interviewed" him as to the situation. He had been a Union Cherokee; took a hundred men out of
here by night in tlhe fall of '61; went North and became a captain;
came back after the war, to find his house and fences burned, and all
his stock run off-some to Kansas, some to Texas.      "Was rich afo'
the war; derned poor now, but gittin' started again. Hated the loss
of my sheep wuss'n any thing else-fine bloods-couldn't get others
like 'em."
At dark, fagged and heated, we reached the widow's. She was a
bright, half-blood Cherokee, and entertained us till late bed-time with
accounts of" the old nation in Geaugey," and their fights and troubles
till they were sent here. Thence we traveled on to Tahlequah, the
Cherokee capital, a pretty town of perhaps eight hundred people.
Our first acquaintance was with William Boudinot, brother of the Elias
Boudinot who has been so active at Washington pushing the Oklahoma Bill.   William is editor of the Cherokee Advocate, official organ
of the Nation, published in English and Cherokee, and a handsome,
well-conducted sheet.   The Choctaws also have a small paper called
the Vindicator, these being the only papers published in the Territory.
Tahlequah was for us rich in historic interest, and we spent three
days most delightfully among the curious old records of the Nation,
here preserved.
The Cherokees represent the best history and the highest hope of
the Indian race.    If they are a failure, the race can not be civilized-the aborigine is doomed. They have been an organized nation
with constitution and written laws for eighty years; far back of that
they were superior to all neighboring tribes.  The oldest printed law
I can find bears date of Broom's Town (in Georgia), 11th Sept. 1808,
and is as follows:
RESOLVED, by the Chiefs and Warriors in a National Council Assembled:... When
any person or persons which may or shall be charged with stealing a horse, and upon
conviction by one or two witnesses, he, she, or they, shall be punished with one hundred
stripes on the bare back, and the punishment to be in proportion for stealing property of
less value; and should the accused person or persons raise up with arms in his or their
hands, as guns, axes, spears, and knives, in opposition to the regulating company, or
should they kill him or them, the blood of him or them shall not be required of any of
the persons belonging to the regulators from the clan the person so killed belonged to.
Accepted:        BLACK Fox, Principal Chief.
PATHKILLER, Second Chief.
TOOCHALAR.
CHAS. HICKS, Secretary to Council.
Other acts bear the signatures of Ehnautaunaueh, Secretary; and
Turtle-at-home, Speaker of Council."     The constitution of May 6,




208


WESTERN WILDS.


1817, sets forth that fifty-four towns have agreed on "a form for
future government."   The following act, passed in 1819, hints at a
Credit Mobilier Scheme:
Whereas, The Big Rattling Gourd, William Grimit, Betsey Broom, The Dark, Daniel
Griffin, and Mrs. Lesley have made certain promises, etc.:
Be it now, therefore, known,.... The above persons are the only legal proprietors
and a privileged company to establish a turnpike, leading from Widow Fools', at the forks
of Hightower and Oostinallah, to the first creek east of John Field's, known by the name
Where-Vann-was-shot, etc.
Some of the dark statesmen retained their aboriginal names, some
simply translated them into plain English, and others adopted new
names from missionaries or noted Americans. Hence we find among
the officials: Young Wolf (perhaps a rising warrior), Okanstotah
Logan, Bark Flute (probably a musical orator), Oolayoa, and Soft
Shell Turtle! Judge Rattling Gourd is a prominent citizen of the nation at present. John Jolly and Spring Frog-perhaps the Sunset Cox
and Ben Butler of their politics-were active in effecting the union.
The Eastern and Western Cherokees reunited in their present
country in 1839, and the "Act of Union" is signed by James Brown,
Te-ke-chu-las-kee, George Guess (Se-quo-yah), Jesse Bushyhead, Lewis
Ross, Tobacco Will, Thomas Candy, Young Wolf, Ah-sto-la-ta, and
some others. At the conclusion is this indorsement:
"The foregoing instrument was read, considered, and approved by
us, this 23d day of August, 1839: Major Pullum, Young Elders, Deer
Track, Young Puppy(!), Turtle Fields, July, The Eagle, The Crying
Buffalo, and a great number of respectable old settlers and late emigrants too numerous to be recorded."
Some two hundred years ago the Cherokees, then known as an
offshoot from the Waupanuckee (whom the French called Lenni
Lenape, and the Americans have since named Delawares), were
pushing slowly down from western North Carolina towards the coast.
On the Yemassee-celebrated by the genius of Gilmore Simms-they
came in contact with the whites; and twenty years before the Revolution occurred a bloody contest, in which they were driven westward.
In the Continental forces were two lieutenants, afterwards known to
fame as General Francis Marion and Major Peter Horry. The major
in his account tells with surprise of the superior dwellings and advancement of the Cherokees. Since that time they have made twenty
successive treaties with the United States; and if any faith whatever is to be kept with Indians, their title to the region they now
occupy is as good as that of any white man to his land. They aban



OKLAHOMA.


209


doned all claims to their lands in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and
North Carolina, on' condition of receiving a fee simple to this land,
witnessed by a patent from the President. This title has been twice
pronounced valid by the Supreme Court, and recognized in eight
solemn treaties. Could title to land be more perfect?
In 1860, they were, as a community, the wealthiest people in the
West. Single herders owned stock to the value of a hundred thousand dollars. In this mild climate and upon these rich prairies cattle
multiplied rapidly. There was soon no land "running to waste," for
all was utilized as pasture.  Many white men sought citizenship or
married Cherokee girls, and were adopted, and the advance of the
Nation was healthful, natural and rapid.
In 1865 their country was almost a waste; the people in extreme
poverty., But they came back from the war and sadly went to work
again. Now it is proposed, because part of them joined the Confederates, that all shall lose their present title and take their chances
under a new allotment.
The Indian Territory contains about 70,000 square miles-onethird very fertile, a third or more fit only for pasture-lands, and the
remainder, the westward portion, comparatively a desert. The four
little governments-Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole-are
republican in form; over all of them extends a sort of Federal
protectorate.  At least twenty little remnants of tribes have been
adopted into these nations, such as the Quawpaws, Senecas, Wyandottes, and Delawares. Their total is nearly as follows:
CHEROKEE NATION.
Full bloods.....  8,000
Mixed.......  4,000
Fteedmen..... 1,500
Whites married in or adopted....  500
Delawares.......900
Shawnees.......          700
Wyandottes.......  400
Quawpaws.......  200
Senecas.......  100
Total Cherokee Nation... 16,300
To which should be added some 2,000 Cherokees now in North
Carolina, who are desirous of settling here, and for whose removal
the Nation is making provisions, bringing the whole number up to
about 18,000. I do not here include those new tribes west of 96~,
not yet formally incorporated.
14




210


WESTERN WILDS.


Full bloods..  (CREEK NATION.),. 9,000
Whites and mixed bloods.... 1,000
Freedmen....... 4,000
Seminoles...... 2,000
Total Creek citizens..      16,000
Pure Choctaws. (CHOCTAW NATION.)..10,000
Mixed.......  4,000
Whites...... 1,000
Chickasaws....... 5,000
Freedmen....... 2,000
Total Choctaw citizens... 22,000
Osages west of 96~.  (MINOR TRIBES.)..3,000
Kaws, west of 96......  600
Unassigned, perhaps..... 3,400
Total minor tribes.... 7,000
Grand total.... 63,000
The Choctaws and Cherokees have the greatest number of intelligent men, but the Creeks are just now doing the most for the rising
generation. They have three Mission High Schools, under control
respectively of the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches.
In 1872 there were in the whole Territory a hundred and sixty common schools-the high average of one to every four hundred of the
population. The number now reaches nearly two hundred.
The present weakness of these people is their imperfect land tenure.
The land is held in common by the whole tribe, but whatever area
any citizen incloses with a lawful fence is his while he occupies it.
He may be said to own the improvements, but not the land. Any
thing may be removed at the owner's will; hence there is practically
no real estate, no conservative landed interest-the only true foundation for a progressive society and a stable civil structure.  The
herder, hunter or explorer, from Kansas or Texas, rides through a
beautiful tract, and, when he asks who owns it, the only answer is:
"The Injuns-it's Injun land;" that is, in his estimation, nobody's
land, if he can by force or fraud get a foothold. If he were told
that it was the property of John Johnnycake or William Beaverdam,
or any other individual, with a patent title on which he could sue
and be sued, the case would be very different to him. A strong
party, therefore, is rising up, agitating for this'reform, which is the
distinctive feature of the Ocmulkee Constitution.
There are a score of reasons why a little-more time should be given
the Indians, and why we should not now throw open this country to




OKLA CHOMA.


211


general settlement. In the first place, we have solemnly agreed not
to do it, which is reason enough for any honorable man. Secondly,
there is no present necessity for it. There are countless millions of
acres lying idle in every State and Territory north of it, untouched
by the cultivator, and even unoccupied by the herdsman. It is too
soon by half a century               -..  _
to repeat to these civ —                   -     -~ --- —-.
ilized Indians the old
order: "Go \EST.        "
There is room in Nebraska for half a million
farmers. There is a
tract in Dakota about
the size of Indiana, yet
unappropriated, with a
c i m a t e suitable for
Northern people, and a      -
most prolific soil.
When these are filled, and our population really begins to feel
crowded, it will be time enough to trouble the Indians. But with
Kansas on one side and Texas on the other offering millions of acres
of good land, it seems as if thousands are half crazy to get into the
Indian Territory just because it is forbidden.
Our true policy is to secure these people their lands, assist them
a little in their progress, and make them our agents to deal with the
wild tribes. Half civilized and barbarous races can best be reached
through the medium of their more advanced brethren. The nations
here are already moving in the matter, and a little assistance only is
needed to enable them to reach and negotiate with all the wild tribes
of Northern Texas and New Mexico. I am hopeful enough to believe
that, with a proper policy, all the tribes in the same latitude, except
possibly the Apaches, might eventually be made citizens of this Territory. We have sent the Indians, as a rule, our worst men and most
destructive practices, and have systematically broken faith whenever
it seemed profitable to do so. Here only has a policy something near
sensible and just been pursued, and the results are not discouraging.
Let it be improved and extended, and we may reasonably hope the
Indians of all the southern Territories will be gathered here; that
an aboriginal community of two hundred thousand will grow into a
high civilization; and in due time we shall have a real native American State-a'progressive and prosperous State of Oklahoma.
m~i,, f                                8




CHAPTER XIV.


JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.
No THOROUGHFARE from Oklahoma westward. The country was
safe enough for three hundred miles from the eastern border; but between that and the settlements in New Mexico intervened five hundred miles of marauding Kioways and murderous Comanches. Stage
coaches run from Fort Smith out to Fort Sill; beyond that the traveler must take his chances for a government train, which might go in
a month or a year. For two men like us, unskilled in wood-craft,
such a trip alone was courting death. Another line of coaches traverses Northern Texas to Fort Concho, but we preferred a more northern route at that season, and turned toward the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
Traveling leisurely northward through Kansas, we still gained rapidly on the season. Montgom'ery County presented a succession of
fertile vales and rolling hills, the latter often rising into picturesque
mounds crowned with 'clumps of timber, and over all the rich green
of advancing spring. In 1868, Montgomery contained twenty settlers
and one post-office; in 1872, it cast a vote of 3,000, indicating a population of at least 10,000. The stream of emigration had filled all
the valleys, then rolled on westward, and after covering the best parts
of Wilson and Cowley counties, had turned north, and was flowing
up the Arkansas Valley. The Kansians thus summed up the changes
since we visited them a month before: " Fine chance o' corn planted,
an' doin' well; splendid prospect for fruit-peaches sure of a whalin'
crop-but wheat don't look well. In fact that crop ain't a certain
thing yet in Southern Kansas. Garden spot o' the world, sir; no
doubt o' that; but we haven't quite got the.land worked down to the
right pitch for wheat."
At midnight of May 2d we left the State Line Station for the long
ride to Denver; and at daylight of the 3d were at Junction City, last
point of connection with any eastern line of rail. Thence the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Road runs south-east, down the valley of the
Neosho to Parsons, in Labette County. So far we see no signs of a
different country from that on the eastern border; timber is plenty
(212)




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.


213


along the streams, the soil is rich, and the road is through a continuous
line of settlements. We are in the valley of the Kaxw or Kansas,
(aboriginal for "blue " or "smoky") till noon; then leave it for the
Smoky Hill Valley, after crossing Republican, Big Blue and Solomon's Fork. These three are big streams-on the map. Combined
they would make a river about the size of the Miami.
We find the valley pretty well settled for fifty miles west of Junction City; then rise rapidly to the high plains where nothing is seen
but an occasional stock ranche. We breakfast at Ellsworth, which
only five years before was the rival of Cheyenne in all that pertains
to rush, crush, business and
deviltry.  It was then the
terminus of the road-also
the terminus of at least a
hundred lives. When I was
there in October, 1867, J.
H. Runkle, Esq., Prosecuting Attorney, informed me
that for ninety-three days
there was a homicide every.   -\ i
day in the town or vicinity.,                   1 / / \S
Those were the palmy days of          i K    ) T
your "Wild Bills" (I made,         /
the acquaintance of the orig-                 i /
inal, and found him quite a      '
1  \  a a -             WILD BILL k-J. B. HICOCKr.
gentleman), a nd  "L o    n g
Steves," your " Dad Smith," "Rake Jake" and "Tom Smith of Bear,River." " Shall we have a man for breakfast?" was the ordinary morning
salutation; and usually it was found that somebody had answered the question affirmatively during the night. "A short life and a merry one,"
was the motto of these roysterers. The life was short enough; its
merriment will be a matter of doubt. Strange to say, officials who had
much to do in thwarting or arresting these men, themselves became
careless of life, or moody and inclined to suicide.  " Wild Bill" sleeps
beneath the green prairies on which he figured in so many tragediesdied by the shot of an assassin. "Dad Smith "was hanged by the vigilantes. "Long Steve" met a like fate at Laramie. "Tom Smith"
was brained by an ax in the hands of a drunken companion. And
saddest of all, but a few months ago (February, 1877) came a dispatch
that J. H. Runkle, U. S. Attorney, committed suicide at Columbia,
South Carolina. (Rake Jake" made lNis exit from a tragedy more




214


WESTERN WILDS.


dramatic than any ever shown upon the stage. With two companions
he took refuge in his cabin on the prairie, and maintained a desperate
fight against the vigilantes. The infuriated Kansians set the dry grass
on fire; the cabin was soon in flames, and issuing therefrom with a
revolver in each hand, scattering leaden death on all sides, the
three died as became their lives, brave men to the last. What a pity
such nerve should be lost.  It was the material for heroes sadly
perverted.
"Pity they loved adventurous life's variety;
They were so great a loss to good society."
Ellsworth is quiet enough now.  During the season for shipping
cattle it is a place of some importance; the rest of the year a quiet
country depot.           From
-      this on our route is
through the Big Pasture.  It extends from
o —~ — 4-      latitude 52a in British
ses    America, to the Rio
_                               Grande, with an aver_I age width of three lln-av                   dred miles, sloping
ag            steadily eastward from
o_ the foot of the Rocky
Mountains. Say 1,500
by 300 miles, and we
have an area of 450,000
r  SCATTERING LEADEN DEATH ON ALL SIDES,"  square miles, set apart
forever by nature as our national grazing ground. Not one acre in twenty
of it can ever be cultivated; while at least half the area produces the
sweetest and most nutritious of grasses. Take a board, four timesas long
as it is wide, lay it north and south, and tilt it a very little toward the
east, then score it from east to westwith a number of furrows, and you will
have a tolerable map or miniature copy of what is called the {" plains."
The western border, the high plateau near the mountains, has an average elevation of 5,000 feet; thence eastward the general slope is ten feet
to the mile; so, by the time we reach the settled portions of Kansas and
Nebraska, we are but 1,000 feet or so above sea-level.  Going westward you are going up-hill and nearer mountains and deserts; consequently into a dryer and colder country, and finally into a region fit
for nothing but pasturage.
We hurry on, and soon after noon enter the buffalo country.  We




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.


215


see few live ones, for it is too early for their great move northward,
but myriads of the dead. Whole herds died here during the heavy
snow in the winter of 1871-'72.  Far as the eye can reach, or as a
good field-glass can sweep the horizon, they lie at intervals of eight or
ten rods, and in every stage of decay.  Some appear just as they fell,
almost entirely preserved-mummified, as it were, by the dry air.
Others have shrunk to small compass with the hide still entire, and
others-by far the larger number-are picked and licked to clean
white skeletons by the wolves. The sight is sad and sickening.
About the stations the skins are piled in great heaps to dry for
market-not so bad to the sight as the other, but worse to the smell.
This region of dead buffaloes extends from first to last, some eighty
miles, traversing which we saw many thousand of their carcasses.
Soon we begin to rout out a few live bisons from their herding
places in the hollows. The cry of " buffalo!" causes a general rush to
the windows; next come antelope, then prairie dogs, and for hours
our palace car company resembles a district school at a menagerie.
Ere long we find the buffalo more numerous, but always at a distance,
feeding in small groups. The whole appearance of the country has
changed; the surface is dry and cracked, and the grass has a cured
look.  Dark overtakes us, still fifty miles east of the Colorado
line.
We wake at Denver, and hasten to the Broadwell House, where we
sit down to a good breakfast and a copy oft'Byers' Rocky Mountain
News.  In its columns we learn that the Democrats have nominated
Horace Greeley for President!  Thirteen years before he and the lamented Richardson made a journey together by stage over the country
we have just traversed; his strong suit then was abuse of Democrats
as the proslavery party.  Time had brought even greater changes in
our politics than in the wild region then vaguely known as the
"Pike's Peak country."  Three days we rested at Denver, a beautiful
city with a happy location. But its merits must wait recital till my
next visit; I must cut short my stay, as the weather is fast getting hotter and dryer where I am going. I thought I knew something about
high tariffs in the West, but when I go to inquire about the fare to
Santa Fe the intelligence nearly takes my breath.
The distance is four hundred and fifteen miles, ninety of which we
go by rail, and the rest by stage. Fare by rail, ten cents per mile;,by
stage, twenty cents; total to Santa Fe, seventy-four dollars, with a dollar a meal on the road.  Moral: Don't go to Santa Fe, unless you
have important business. From what I hear, the rates are still higher




216


WESTERN WILDS.


to where I wish to go in Arizona, with the comfort added, however,
that, in all probability, I can not get there at all, as three drivers have
lately been killed by the Apaches. Partiesare organizing with a view
of going through the center of Arizona and New Mexico, from Santa
Fe to Fort Prescott; but all I consult here shake their heads doubtfully on the subject. However, I have generally observed in traveling that dangers lessen as one draws near them.  At Denver, Mr. De
Bruler's trip ended, much to my regret, for I was just entering on the
region where, most of all, I should need an intimate companion.  For
the first stage
_  -        B-                    I took the
tle narrow-e. Ten
guage     in
America, but
usually called
the "1 narrowgouge," in
delicate satire
on  its rates
of fare. Ten
" DIVIDE HOTEL AND BANCHE."
cents per mile
is high; but, before the road was built, it was twenty cents by stage.
The road had no land subsidy, and the travel is light as yet. Most
who go that way would be only too glad to pay that rate all the way
to Santa Fe.
We journey   t a sobre passo gait of ten or fifteen miles an hour,
southward and up the Platte Valley, which has the appearance of an
old, settled, and cultivated country. - The farm-houses are in much
better style, and the system of irrigation more scientific than in Utah.
Farmers are plowing, and the spring crops coming forward finely.
About 10 A. M. we leave the Platte and follow up a small stream to
the "Divide."  Here we are in the lumber region, as shown by the
immense stacks of the same about the depots; and the "Divide Hotel
and Ranche " is built of massive pine logs, in the style of a primitive
'Hoosier" cabin. Behind it, the cool, dark-green woods invite to a
halt, and in front, the cold, clear pool, fed by rivulets from snow



4


JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.                 217
banks, is well stocked with mountain trout. Singularly enough, near
the " Divide," on both sides are considerable fields cultivated without
irrigation, there being sufficient rain when one draws near the summit
and the timber! *The timber causes the rain, or the rain produces the
timber, or the mountains are the cause of both, or some other sufficient cause accounts for all three.  The plainsmen don't know, and
perhaps the scientists are equally wise.
As soon as we pass the summit, and get on the head-waters of the
Fontaine Que Bouille, we see on all the slopes immense herds of cattle
an(l sheep.  At Colorado Springs lives one man who has 13,000 sheep
in this region, and I.am reliably informed there are 250,000 head of
stock in the system of valleys opening out on this stream. The country is evidently one of the best in the world for sheep.  It is high,
dry, cool in summer, and not very cold in winter, with just moisture
enough to produce good grass. For about fifty miles we traverse a
beautiful grazing region.  At the Springs we stop an hour for dinner.
Here is one of the coming towns of Colorado, having a fine fertile valley, immense grazing area, and the noted chemical springs-already a
great place of fashionable resort.  I am most agreeably surprised by
Southern Colorado.  There is very little desert, and, except the bare
mountains, it appears to me a country of great natural richness. The
valleys are very fertile, and most of the slopes furnish good pasturage.
At Little Buttes we change to the coach, the only passengers beside
myself being Captain Humphreys, of the United States Army, his wife
and servant, on their way to Fort Union.  At dark we make a brief
halt at Pueblo, and are off for the night ride. The first night in a
coach is always worse than the second; by that time one's sensibilities
are dulled, and he can sleep, unless the pounding is harder than common. We breakfast at Cocharas, an old-style Mexican hacienda, in a
beautiful circular valley, seventy miles from Little Buttes. I am still
fresh as at starting, and make havoc among the wheaten cakes, fried
eggs, and chopped and stewed mutton, which, with coffee, constitute
our breakfast-called here, however, tortillas, huevos, carne and cafe respectively. A plump and pretty sefforita sits by, and gives me my first
lesson in Spanish, with a pleasing variety of smiles and graceful gestures.  Our driver for to-day is " Fat Jack," who, ten years before,
lived in Cincinnati, and might have traveled as the " Original Living
Skeleton." Some unnamable and wasting disease had reduced him
to less than ninety pounds weight.  He started West, began to improve, reached New Mexico, went to driving stage, and now weighs




218                    WESTERN WILDS.
two hundred!   He is five feet four inches high, and four feet two
inches around the waist, and has a voice like a fog-horn
All day we rolled along, the four horses at a sweeping trot,
over the finest natural roads and through a succession of sublime
scenery that made us forget fatigue. For a mile in one place we
drove through a dog-town, the little creatures scampering in all directions but a few rods from  the coach. The road runs just far enough
from the base of the mountains to secure a level track; to our right
were the red hills rising to blue mountains, and above them the eversnow-clad peaks; to our left the gently rolling plain fading away till
its pale green surface met the blue horizon..Most of the day the
Spanish Peaks seemed just above us, westward; in front was Fisher's
Peak, of the Raton Mountains, glistening white with snow. For
hours the last named looks as if it were 'about five or ten miles
away. It is fifteen miles on an' air lin —as determined by the U. S.
Engineers-from the hotel in Trinidad, at the base of the mountains.
We reach that place, the last town in Colorado, at 4 P. M., rest an
hour, take supper, and change to a small, stout uncomfortable coach,
in which to make the passage of the Raton. We reach the summit
just at dark, and have a fearful run down the southern side. Fortunately we can not see the danger, if there is any; and have nothing to
do but bounce about in the dark inside the coach, butt each other's
heads, shift ballast to suit the pitching, and enjoy ourselves generally.
About midnight the jolting ceases, and the gentler motion indicates
that we have come out into a smooth valley, and on to a good natural
road. We.compose ourselves, hang to the straps and get two or three
hours tolerable sleep.
Shortly before daylight we are roused'by the driver, with notice that
an important bridge has been washed away, leaving only a foot-log,
on which the passengers must crqss while the coach makes a circuit
of some miles.  Our party of four were soon on the banks of the
stream, and, by the light of a lamp, saw a fearful gorge, crossed by
one narrow log, while fifteen feet below ran a stream strong enough
to wash us out of sight in a moment. In vain the ladies were urged
to try the passage; lacking confidence, a fall would have been certain.
While we stood shivering on the brink, like a group of sinners ready
to cross the River Styx, I noticed that the banks were not too steep
for descent, and so climbed down by the aid of rocks and bushes, to
the water's edge. The other male passenger soon followed, and we
found enough of the ruins to construct a half-floating bridge.  An
hour's labor, with the driver kneeling on the log above to light us to




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.


219


our work, made a bridge on which the ladies succeeded in being
helped across with fewer screams than could have been expected. A
short walk brought us to the next station, where the coach overtook
us in an hour.
We are now out upon the high plains of north-eastern New Mexico,
a region of fierce winds and chilling rains at this season, inhabited
only by nomadic herders. We breakfast at Maxwell's Ranche, headquarters of the Maxwell estate, an old Mexican grant containing two
or three hundred square miles, including fifty sections of the best land
in NAv Mexico, and one gold mine. Maxwell has lately sold the
grant to an English company, who are bringing in machinery to work
the mine, and utilize the abundant water-power. A good breakfast,
with a pint of hot coffee apiece, restored the intellectual balance,
and we entered upon the third day of staging with renewed vigor.
We travel all day in a south-east direction over rolling plains and
low mountain spurs, leaving the main range some distance to the
west, and cross the Rayado, Ocate, and minor tributaries of the Canadian. At noon a cold rain comes on, changing soon to a light sleet;
we are miserable, and long for port. Late in the afternoon we reach
Fort Union, when Captain Humphreys and family leave us, and my
only companion is a young German thence to Las Vegas. This is a
little south of Santa Fe on the headwaters of the Pecos River. It
dates back to the early days of Spanish occupation, and is a rather
prosperous place of three or four thousand. There our coach took on
three U. S. army officers and the Right Reverend John B. Lamy,
bishop of the diocese, who exerted himself to cheer up the heavy
hours of the night as the coach labored through the mountain passes
down to Santa Fe. The cold was intense, and the dawn showed three
inches of freshly fallen snow. The open growth of mountain pines
relieved the landscape but little; the bare knolls looked inexpressibly
dreary, and the dark gorges suggested wild beasts and banditti. The
rising sun illumined the ragged peaks to our left, and poured a flood
of light through the side cafions, bringing out the red and yellow
stripes upon the wind-worn rocks, and producing for a brief space a
scene of strange, weird beauty.  At one station the occupants were
dressing a bear which they had killed the previous night.
This is my fourth day of continuous travel, and I begin to
weaken; my head pitches forward and back in involuntary "catnaps" of a minute each.    After four hours riding down hill,
by 10 o'clock in the morning the snow had disappeared; once
more nature asserted herself, and I was really feeling bright again




220


WESTERN WILDS.


when we came in sight of Santa Fe. In all my travels I never.remember being so disappointed. One might pass within two miles of
the city and
mllss it. It
is not in
the   Rio
Valley, as
I had supposed, but
at  least
t w e n t y
miles from
that river,
quite in a
hollow, and
appears  a
miserable,
low, flat
collection
of mud
huts. Some
squares are
walled i n
with mud,
stones and
adobes;
then the
width of a
house roofed around
the square
on the inside; partition walls
" SUGGESTED WILD BEASTS AND BANDITTI."     are  built,
passages cut through, and a score of dwellings in one group are
complete. As the coach rolls through the narrow, ugly streets, it
looks more like driving.through a dirt cut in some excavation than
the streets of a city.  As we near the center of town these
squares seems more compact; holes appear to have been cut through,




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.


221


making shut alleys or narrow streets, and other openings show the
interior of these mud-walled squares to be a sort of stamping ground
in common, for pigs, chickens, jackasses, children, ugly old women
and " Greasers."
Reaching the plaza, things look a little better. There at least is al
patch of green, a tract grown up in alfalfa, or Spanish clover. We
stop at the Exchange, the only hotel in the city for white men, or
rather Americans, the other distinction, though perfectly accurate, not
being well relished here. The Exchange is a one-story square, like
all the rest; but across the middle of the square is a line of buildings
containing the dining-room and kitchen, and dividing the stable-yard
and poultry run from the open court for human use. An arched way
between the kitchen and dining-room connects the two courts; on the
human side women and children take their recreation, and men of
quiet or literary tastes can sit and read; while the stable side is sacred
to dog-fights, cock-fights, wrestling-matches, pitching Mexican dollars and other exclusively manly pursuits.  The people of Santa Fe
evidently do not take in' their philosophy the statement that "'Man
was made to mourn."
'But I have little time to note these facts, for soon after leaving the
coach my head is rolling as in a fit of sea-sickness; and I soon take
to bed, where I remain for fourteen hours. Rising refreshed, I see
the city in a fairer light. The streets are dreary in themselves, but
the wayfarers are picturesque.  Here comes a mountaineer with a
caballardo of donkeys, each bearing his little load of wood or haypiled high on his back and strapped as only a Mexican can strap it.
Next is a well-to-do citizen-always fairer than the common peoplewith all the pride of the gente fina; then a Pueblo Indian with redder
complexion than his wild congener, and curiously striped and colored blanket wrapping his stocky form. White soldiers in blue are
numerous, for this is military headquarters for a large district; stylish
officers with American wives brighten the principal street or saunter
in the plaza, while heavily loaded army wagons drag slowly through
the dust. The local traders, mostly Jews, add not a little to the comfort of the place; they speak all the languages used here, and are all
things to all men to make it pleasant for visitors.
The sun shines from a sky of dazzling purity, but the air is cool;
fires are necessary in the hotel parlor except for a few hours of midday,
and I wear my overcoat on the streets. The city has a summer
climate like that of -Quebec, and a winter atmosphere much like that
of Tennessee. All this is a surprise, as I had somehow got the idea




222


WESTERN WILDS.


that Santa Fe was in a hot climate. For incipient pulmonary complaints it is most excellent; those in an advanced stage of consumption die very suddenly here. Just north-east of the city, though
thirty miles away, "Old Baldy," the noted mountain peak, rears its
white head 12,000 feet high; east of us is the Rocky Range; on both
sides of the city abrupt spurs put out westward toward the Rio
Grande. The elevation is 7,000 feet, making this one of the highest
cities in America; hence to the Rio Grande is all the way down hill,
a descent of some twenty-two hundred feet.
Santa Fe de San Francisco, ("Holy Faith of Saint Francis,") as
the old Spaniards named this city, has been inhabited by white men
for two hundred and fifty years; and long before that by Pueblos, one
of their old towns having been partly on the same site. In the narrow valley of Santa Fe Creek, walled in on all sides except the west,
by abrupt mountains, it is measurely free from winter storms. On
the other hand a suit of summer clothes is seldom seen in the streets;
there are not thirty days in the year when they are needed. The
place looks a thousand years old; the dwellings are low, flat and uninviting. I don't think there are twenty two-story houses in the city.
The residences of some of the officials display a little taste; two or
three of the merchants have houses with pretty surroundings, and
Bishop Lamy has a place which would almost be considered pretty in
Ohio. I saw perhaps a dozen gardens; all the rest of the view is
bare, gray and dried-mud color. But here are old withered Mexicans, whose fathers and grandfathers were born, lived and died in
tlis valley; for Santa Fe was an important place long before William Penn laid out Philadelphia. Here are old records and Spanish
manuscripts, with which an antiquarian might spend months of enjoyment. Yes, Santa Fe has one great merit-it is rich in historic interest.
The Mexicans are a strangely polite, lazy, hospitable, lascivious,
kind, careless and unprogressive race. The town saw its best days
many years ago, when the Santa Fe trade from St. Louis and Independence was of great importance. It is now but the shell of former
greatness. The population is claimed to be 6,000; I do not see
where they put them. The whites, not of Spanish origin, number
about five hundred. The Federal officials are Americans, from the
States; most of the Territorial officers, Mexicans. It is a wonder
there is so little confligt of jurisdiction, with all these differences of
race and religion; but- New Mexico is politically the quietest
of the Territories. Instead of the ever-recurring religious squabbles
of Utah, or the internecine political strifes of Dakota, these people




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.


223


seem always satisfied with what the officials do, if it is within a
hundred degrees of right. They.consider a governor as only one
remove below the Deity; or, rather two removes, the Virgin Mary
coming next, and the governor being about on the same degree as
St. Peter. To one like myself, accustomed to the studied contempt, or
lordly indifference, or good-natured and irreverent bonhomntie, with
which Territorial governors are regarded, respectively in Utah, Colorado and Dakota, it was something amusing to witness old, grayheaded men, with hat removed, bowing low to Governor Giddings,
and to hear the senoras direct their children as he passed, " No hable
uste tanto. El Gobernador!"  Politeness is ingrained in all SpanishAmericans.
As with most mixed races, the standard of morals is not high. The
gente fina, or upper classes, mingle very little with the common people;
socially not at all. Except among the aristocracy, who seldom invite travelers to their houses, there seems to be no distinction at social
gatherings on the score of character. The indifference on that subject
would astonish most Americans. If the Stantons, Anthonys, etc., are
really in earnest in the statement that "woman should have no worse
stigma than man for sexual sins," they would certainly be gratified
here, for the disgrace is, at least, as great to one sex as the other.
Indeed, I think the general judgment for marital unfaithfulness is
more severe on a man than a woman. The young Americans bring
their mistresses to the baile with the same indifference the Mexicans
do their sweethearts. These "girls" are scrupulously polite, and so
unlike the same class in the States, that it can only be accounted for
by the fact that they see no disgrace whatever in their mode of life,
and feel no sort of social degradation.
A visitor with any reverence in his composition scaroely knows
whether to smile or sigh at that " faith without knowledge," which
shows in all their customs, and most of all in their names. Jesus,
Maria, Mariano and Jose (Joseph) are favorites, the second and
third common to both sexes.   A prominent citizen is Don Jesus
Vigil. His parents probably intended him for a "watchful Christian."  Fortunately for sensitive American ears, it is pronounced
Haysoos Veheel. Irreverent as it may appear in me to write it, there
is a well-known citizen whose name is Jesus A. Christ de Vaca (Haysoos Antonio Kreest day Bvahca).
Sometimes among the gentefina, the marriage contract specifies that
the sons take both names (united by "and"), from some principle
of law as to entailed estates. Thus Don Jose Vigil y Alarid is the




224


WESTERN WILDS.


son of a lady of the Alarid family married to Seflor Vigil. In like
manner my young friends insisted that my rough Saxon patronymic
did not suit the soft Castilian, and I became Sefor Juan de Bidello.
All Spanish-Americans are brilliant in nomenclature. The full name
of a cowherd sounds like the title of a grandee.  Americans who settle in the country very often translate their own names, or give them a
Castilian termination. By such process Mr. Meadows becomes Sefior
Las Vegas; John Boggs, Sefior Juan dePalos; and Jim Gibbons
flowers out as Don Santiago de Gibbonoise. An Irishman from Denver settled near El Paso, married a wealthy Mexican lady, and lives in
style; his original name, Tim Murphy, is long since forgotten, and
he signs his bank checks as Timotheus Murfando.
Twelve days I wandered about Santa Fe, finding much to interest,
and picking up a smattering of the language to serve me in my travels westward. Daily I studied the routes through Arizona, and each
day brought fresh tales of disaster.  First came a Mexican from El
Paso, whose two companions were killed by Indians on the edge of
the Jornada del Muerto; and next a ranchero from the south-western
border, whose Mexican herders were killed, and all his stock run off
by the Mescalero Apaches.  And while he was yet speaking came
another messenger, and said that nine prospectors, who left by the
northern route, went too far south, fell into an ambuscade, and "their
scalps now ornament the lodges of Collyer's pets."  Simultaneously
a lieutenant and sergeant of cavalry were ambuscaded in the Alamosa
and their animals "ruched" with arrows.. Drawing their revolvers,
they dashed bravely on, firing right and left, knowing that to be their
only chance for life, and, by rare good fortune, got through and into
the open plain. Sorely wounded, and compelled to abandon their
exhausted animals, only the darkness of night prevented their
capture.
We next receive Arizona papers with the information that the eastern coach was attacked near Tucson, and the driver and messenger
killed; and that the western coach was robbed beyond Fort Yumd
by Mexican ladrones, and the station-keeper and one messenger murdered.  The white population of Arizona was 9,600, and they then
averaged a loss of twenty per month by Apaches and Mexicansabout half the ordinary mortality of an army. All things considered,
I concluded to try the northern route.  A soldier was about to start
for Fort Wingate with a wagon-load of provisions; and General Myers, quartermaster, kindly gave me passage with him.  From Wingate I thought to catch some kind of an expedition to Prescott.




I


JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE. '


225


There were stretches of fifty miles on that line without grass or water, but no hostile Indians, which suited me admirably. By waiting
a month I could have gone to the Little Cdlorado with a party of
engineers; but life is too short to stay a whole month in Santa Fe.
At noon of May 22d I took my seat on an army wagon, and rolled


"DRAWING THEIR REVOLVERS, THEY DASHED BRAVELY ON."
out of the New Mexican capital. Crossing the Rio de Santa Fe, we
left the valley and struck across the mesa in a south-west direction, the
city behind us appearing to sink slowly into the earth.  Looking
back upon it, this noted town appealed to my eye exactly like a collection of old brick yards.  It is my invariable custom to say something good of a town on departing, if I can possibly think of a good
thing to say, but Santa Fe "raises me out."  It was an important
15




226


WESTERN WILDS.


place in the old days of freighting from the Missouri border, because
it was on the first level and fertile piece of ground the trains could
reach after getting through the mountain passes. But it can never be
a railroad center, though it may some day have a branch road.
My only companion from Santa Fe to Fort Wingate was Frank
Hamilton, of the Eighth United States Cavalry, stationed at that post.
Frank had been detailed to come to Santa Fe on military business,
and had improved the occasion by getting gloriously drunk, in which
condition he remained most of the time he was there, aid was barely
sober enough to know the road.  His first move was down a threefoot bank into the Santa Fe. I jumped into the water to avoid a fall
on the rocks, which stuck up sharply on the other side; but the
wagon careened half over, lodged and righted again, when the mules
took a forward surge, so I got off with nothing worse than a drenching.  Hamilton, being drunk, and limber as a rag, of course escaped
injury.  For warmith and dryness' sake I walked most of the
afternoon.
We turn south-west, rising by successive " benches " to a vast barren table-land. We pass in the afternoon one Mexican hamlet, looking like a collection of half a dozen " green " brick-yards-dry, hard,
dusty and desolate.  Crossing the high mesa, level as the sea, we approach an irregular line of rocks, rising like turrets ten or twenty feet
above the plain, which we find to be a sort of a natural battlement
along the edge of the "big hill."  Reaching the cliff we see, at an
angle of forty-five degrees below us, in a narrow valley, the town of
La Bajada.  Down the face of this hill the road winds in a stries of
zigzags, bounded in the worst places by rocky walls, descending fifteen hundred feet in three-quarters of a mile. La Bajada is the stereotyped New Mexican town-a collection of mud-huts, among which
one or two whitewashed domos indicate the residences of persons of
the gente fina (hen-ta fee-nabh), or, as they themselves style it, of the
sangre azul (blue blood).
The town has a hotel, consisting of a quadrangle of rooms around
an open square, which contains some flowers, two shade-trees, benches,
and wash-stands. The rooms have floors of wood, instead of dirt; the
walls are whitewashed; two mirrors and a buffalo-skin lounge adorn
the sitting-room, and generally the place ranks high.  Two brighteyed, graceful, copper-colored se-ioritas bring me a supper of coffee,
side meat, eggs and tortillas de mais, and entertain me with a voluminous account, in musical Spanish, of their personal recollections
of the place.  I have learned enough of the language to be able to




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.


227


say "ah," "yes," and "no" at nearly the right place, and that is the
most required to keep a Mexican woman social. My companion, jolly
drunk, was barely able to get his team into the corral, when he fell
back into the wagon asleep, and, as he was the cook of our outfit, I
was obliged to stay over night at the hotel.  Except the two houses
mentioned, the whole town is of a uniform dull clay color, walls of
of mud, fences of mud, door and window-casings of mud-colored
wood, roofs of slightly sloping poles, covered with earth two or three
feet thick, floors of native earth beaten hard, and nowhere a patch of
grass to relieve the wearied eye.  It is one of the few Mexican towns
not named after some saint; La Bajada means "The Descent," the
words being pronounced together, Lavvahadda.
Thence, in the cool of the morning, we journey at a sobre passo gait of
two miles an hour, down the valley towards the Rio Grande. The first
point of interest is the Pueblo of Santo Domingo, where I visit for an
hour. The houses are all in a bunch; a few have doors, but most are
still entered from the roof, there being a ladder or rude stairway at
the' corner. All the men were in the public field at work, and the
women and children appeared strangely quiet and undemonstrative.
The only man I met accompanied me three miles on the road.  He
gave his name as Antonio Gomez, and talked fluently of their mode
of life and system of government. We were more social, indeed, than
could have been expected of men with but a few hundred words in
common; but words are like dollars-a few go a long ways when one
is pinched. But my main question: "How many years since your
people first came here?" he answered, with a laugh: "Quinn sabe?
Quisas doce quinientos!"  (Who knows?  Perhaps a dozen times five
hundred!) They generally reckon by tens; are seldom able to count
high numbers, and any thing above two or three hundred is " infinity,"
vaguely expressed by quinientos.
Three miles brought us down into a beautiful vega, containing some
two miles square of rich, natural meadow, on which the Pueblos had
several hundred head of horses and mules. My companion pointed
out with some pride his own manada of sixty mules and mares, attended by his three boys, and urged me to stop at his rancheria and
take dinner. But appearances were not inviting, so I plead no tiempo,
and hurried on after the team, Antonio leaving me with a friendly
grasp, and, "Addio, Senor, pasa buenas dies."  (May you pass good
days.) A little farther on we drove within a quarter of a mile of the
river, where some twenty Pueblos were hauling a rude seine.  They
held up some good-sized fish, shouting the price, but, on my de



228


WESTERN WILDS.


cining, waved me off with, "Buenajornada, Seior!"  (A good journey, sir.)
We pass the little pueblo of San Felipe, and from this vega rise to
another desert-for ten miles the same eye-wearying panorama of dry
sand, dark-gray rock, and treeless, grassless mesa, the whole uninhabited. About 3 P. M. we descend to another oasis of two or
three square miles, where we spend the night at the town of Algodones.  All that I had previously seen of unsightly Mexican towns
is eclipsed by this straggling row of unburnt brick-kilns-walls,
fences, houses, fields and corrals of dried mud.  My companion had
fortunately got sober enough to cook our supper, while I hunted for
some additions to our fare, which consisted of army bread, pork,
coffee and potatoes.  I found three luxuries for sale: vino de pais (native wine), eggs and goat's milk.  My soldier took the milk by
choice, but I confined myself to the eggs and wine, with the regular
fare.  After supper I ran about town till I found one intelligent citizen, who gave me much information about the country, in a mixture
of French and Spanish.  "When will the thirty-fifth parallel road be
built?" and "Will New Mexico be admitted soon as a State?" were
the questions on which he earnestly desired information. He set forth
the arguments for a State government at great length. The strongest,
in his estimation, seemed to be, "The rich (los ricos) are all in favor
of it."  As they must pay the expense, he thought they should have
whatever they wanted.
We were off at six next morning, and a few miles from Algodones
entered the great oasis of Albuquerque, the largest body of good
land in* New Mexico.   For nearly a hundred miles, with slight
breaks, extends the fertile valley of the Rio Grande, varying from two
to eight miles wide.  In this portion an acecquia, taken out of the
river above, runs along the bluffs, from which side-ditches, one every
furlong or oftener, convey the water among the fields.  There we see
ridges of dirt thrown up, dividing the field into little squares of some
five rods each, to hold the water, The labor of irrigating seems much
greater than in Utah. In comparison with the sterile mesas we have
crossed, this fertile strip seems a very Eden. Wheat, which at Santa
Fe was just high enough to give a faint tinge of green, is here a foot
high, rank and thrifty.  We are twenty-two hundred feet lower than
that city, and in a climate at least ten degrees warmer. Not more than
one-tenth of the whole area of New Mexico is fit for cultivation. Even
of that so fit, not more than half lies in a position to be irrigated, with
the present system. But that which is fertile is exceedingly so.




JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE.                   229
At least five-sixths of the population of New Mexico lives in the
Rio Grande Valley, or along its immediate tributaries; there are all
the important towns, while one may cross the country from east to
west, and travel for days without sight of a dwelling or green spot
In most towns one sees no shade trees, no rills of sparkling water
coursing the streets as in Utah or Colorado; even the Rio Grande is
often exhausted in dry weather, and the many irrigating ditches it
supplies leave its bed dry for miles.  Albuquerque appears in the
distance like a collection of brick-yards unburnt; but a nearer view
shows many vineyards and gardens. Among the little farms near the
city, the inhabitants are repairing their fences, as usual just before
the summer drought. A box-frame, some two feet square and a foot
deep, with no bottom, is placed upon the ground and filled with tough
mud mingled with a little grass; then, the frame being lifted, leaves a
section of the wall in place to be hardened and whitened (a little) by
the sun. Successive blocks are stacked on this, till the mud wall is
four or five feet high. Such are the only fences one can see for days
of travel along the Rio Grande.
Reaching Albuquerque my soldier decided that he had enough
money left for a two days' spree; we would therefore remain till
Sunday morning. So I rested, wrote, and rambled in the queer, flat,
old city, calling also on the padre, who is usually the most intelligent.
man in a Mexican town. All the acting padres are now French or
Irish; the native Mexican priests have been retired, whether on halfpay or not I did not learn. The padre gave me many facts: that the
oasis of Albuquerque was some eighty miles long, and averaged four
miles wide, and that it was now two hundred and fifty years since the
Spanish Duke of Albuquerque encamped on this spot, though the city
is not so old. His name in full was Don Alphonso Herrera Ponto
Delgado de Albuquerque.   I asked the padre "what was his front
name," but he did not seem to know. His descendants now belong to
the gente fina, that is to say, the first families before mentioned-people who have the sangre azul in their veins. The city is some two
hundred years old, contains about 2,000 people, and boasts of the
finest church in New Mexico-a stately pile of adobes, with two lofty
and whitewashed towers. The people generally are poor, pious, and
contented. A palacio of dried mud, a meal of corn and pimiento,
and a slip of corn-shuck filled with tobacco and rolled into a cigarette, is the height of a "Greaser's" ambition.




CHAPTER XV.


TOLTECCAN.
ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA was the first European who
stood upon the soil of New Mexico.  A survivor of the unfortunate Pamphilo de Narvaez's expedition, he wandered for ten years
among the aborigines between the
Mississippi and Gulf of California;
reached the Spanish settlements in
EB              Mexico, and lived to write a book
as full of marvels as Swift's Gulliver.  The miracles, supernatural
cures, and other nonsense in the
work, have caused many to reject
I a         it entire; but as it is proved by
\       other testimony that he went into
the wilderness at one time and
came out of it at another, and as
his descriptions of places are as
PUEBLO MAIDEN.       correct as could be written today, we are justified in regarding the possible part of it as true.
The private journal of Vaca begins on the 4th of September,
1527, when the few survivors of the Nfarvaez expedition were
making boats to go to Mexico. All these boats were lost except
that of Vaca, which was wrecked upon the coast of Texas. With
some fifteen others he was captured by the Indians; and of this
number but three reached Mexico with him —Dorantes and Castillo,
Spaniards, and a Barbary negro named Estevanico.    Sometimes
slaves, sometimes peddlers, and again treated as guests and acting
as physicians, they got as far north as the Canadian River. Then
they turned westward, traversed what Vaca called the "cow country,"
and came to a desert.   Crossing this with much suffering, they
visited in turn nearly all the strange tribes of New Mexico, and
at last reached the vicinity of the Gulf of California.  There they
came upon the force commanded by Diego de Alcaraz, who was
exploring the country under orders of the Viceroy of New Spain
(230)




TOL TECCA N.


231


(Mexico). Thence they went to the City of Mexico, being everywhere received with public demonstrations, and ending their journey "on the day before the vespers of Saint James," in 1536. Vaca
afterwards married a wealthy Spanish lady, and attained to considerable rank.  In Pefia Blanca, New Mexico, lives one Don Tomas
Cabeza de Vaca (who will probably be Governor if the Territory
soon becomes a State), who is the tenth in direct descent from
Alvar Nunez.
The next expedition into New Mexico was by Don Francisco Vasquez Coronado, in command of some seven hundred cavaliers, in the
years 1540-'46, in search of the "Seven Cities of Cibola." At that
time all this region was called by the Spaniards Cibola. This word
in the Spanish lexicons is translated "A quadruped called the Mexican
bull;" but in Mexico it means the buffalo. The cities Coronado
went to find were said to be situated in a vast oval valley, the most
fertile on earth, and walled in by mountains full of rich mines; they
were paved with gold and silver, the houses lighted with precious
stones, and the richest metals were il common use for domestic
utensils. In short, it was the biggest kind of a bonanza. But they
never found the cities, though they hunted six or seven years, and, by
the right of first occupation, added to the Spanish possessions a region
twelve times the size of Ohio.  All this but twenty years after the
conquest of Cortez, and two hundred and fifty years before the founding of Cincinnati.
Coronado returned to the city of Mexico in disappointment and
disgrace; but with him was a gentleman and scholar named Castaneda,
who wrote a very fascinating account of the trip, and incited others to
turn explorers.  He described most of the important mountains, rivers
and tribes of Arizona, New Mexico and North-western Texas; and
thirty years after him, two friars led in a small missionary company,
of whom all were killed by the Indians. Next came Antonio de Espejo, who is credited with having founded Santa Fe in 1580; and
after him Don Juan de Onati, who made the first permanent settlement; about 1591. Other colonists followed fast, but seventy years
afterwards the Pueblos, native Indians, rebelled and drove out or
massacred the Spaniards.  Governor Otermin and General Vargas
soon came back with a Spanish army, and by a bloody war thoroughly
subjugated the Pueblos.  The more warlike fled to valleys in the
western mountains; the remainder settled into docile subjects of
Spain, and in time became devoted Catholics.
For a hundred years after the conquest miscegenation went on




232


WESTERN WILDS.


rapidly, producing the present Mexican race; then, by the operation
of some mysterious law it ceased, and the people now appear fixed in
permanent types. It is as rare for one of the upper classes to marry.
among the common people as for white and colored to marry in the
States. In nearly all lands where there are mixed bloods, the ruling
caste is the whitest. In the Turkish and the Mexican armies the officers are quite fair; the common soldiers dark as Indians. The gente
fina of New   Mexico are comparatively mild brunettes; but the
' greasers " are at least mulatto color. In the States we say "as dark
as a Spaniard;" in Mexico they say " as fair as a Spaniard."  We
take our idea from the mixed races; they take theirs from the pure
Castilians they see, who are fair as Scotchmen. Their Creole descendants in Mexico and the South-west are almost equally fair, but often
delicate in physique and devoid of energy.  I have spoken of their
long names. When.one inherits several estates his title often includes
the names of, all of them; and it is reported that the " shoddy" sometimes insist on being addressed by the full title. Hence the following (reported) sad occurrence: A young nobleman, Lopez y Interlopez de las Casas Filatas y Aman de Cor, was walking with his intended, Seflorita Inez Pranalada, along the Rio Grande, her mother
acting as duenna. While he was at a distance Inez fell into the
river, and the mother screamed, "Oh, Senor Lopez y Interlopez de
las Casas Filatas "-but by this time the fair Inez had sunk to rise no
more.
In New Mexico there are about half a dozen castes, the regular
dark Mexicans outnumbering all others. The population is classified
thus:
Americans........  6,000
Mexicans........ 86,000
Citizen Indians (Pueblos).....  10,000
Wild Indians (perhaps)...... 20,000
Total,......     122,000
The common people are incredibly poor. If a late peon, now free,
has a dollar, he neither labors nor thinks till it is gone. Twenty-five
cents of it buys flour, twenty-five goes for dilces for the sefora,
another twenty-five pays for absolution, and the rest buys a lottery
ticket. No matter if his ticket draw a blank a hundred times in
succession: " maybe some time I win," is to him sufficient answer. A
few families own all the wealth of the country. Even they have their
wealth mostly in flocks and herds, and immense as it is, it brings them
but few of the luxuries of life. If this Territory is admitted now as




TOL TECCAN.


233


a State, it ought to be called the State of Pobritta (" Little Poverty.")
Each of these wealthy families has from a hundred to two thousand
dependents, some of whom were their peons before that system was
abolished, and continue to yield obedience by nature and habit. If a
State, this would be a most complete "rotten borough "-the worst
"carpet-bag" State in the Union. Fifteen families with ease would
rule it-the Chaves, Gallegos, Delgados, Sefas, Garcias, Pereas,
Oteros, Quintanas, and a few others.  These families have threefourths of the wealth of the Territory, and all the influence. The
poor Mexicans do any thing they are told; in fact do n't know how to
do otherwise than as they are told. These families, in combination
with half a dozen priests, and a dozen or more Americans, would divide the home offices between them, and send whomsoever they
pleased to Congress. It is usually the aim of speculative Americans
to "stand in" with one of the noble families. But many of our
people have disdained such sycophancy, and yet won for themselves
an honorable place in New Mexican annals. Chief among these was
the noted Kit Carson, scout, trapper, and hunter; then guide to Fremont, and afterwards Federal colonel, and last of all Indian Agent for
the Utes, in which capacity he died at his home in Taos.
The Pueblos are evidently a decaying race. Anciently they consisted of four nations: the Piros, Teguas, Queres and Tagnos. According to their own account they number only one-tenth what they
did before the conquest. A regular pueblo (" village ") consists of a large
square, with open court in the center; the stories rise in terraces, each
giving back a few feet from the one below. There are no doors on the
outside, the entrance on the roof being reached by a ladder. But in
the long peace they are slowly adopting the style of dwelling used by
the Mexicans.  They are stout and muscular, with rather pleasant
countenances; speak Spanish fluently, but learn English with difficulty, and never teach others their language. They dress in woolen
of their own manufacture, and are very industrious, chaste, and honest.
Who are they? is the puzzling question. They did not learn their
civilization from the Spaniards, that is certain; -but were found by the
latter almost as far advanced as to-day. Castaneda says the Pueblos
came with a nation from the north-west, and their own tradition is
that they are   Montezumas   Indians.   Against this, however,
Baron Humboldt contended that the Aztec language differed essentially from that of the Pueblos, and Castaneda further says that
they were unknown to the people of Mexico until Cabeza de Vaca
and his companions brought account of them. Before 1871, they




234


4VESTERN WILDS.


were not considered citizens; then the question was raised, and the
Supreme Court pronounced them legal voters. They still dress in the
ancient costume, which is neither Indian nor Spanish, but a sort of
mixture, with pantaloons somewhat in the Turkish style, and when in


KIT CARSON.
full dress with a profusion of red and yellow. They inhabit twentysix villages, principally in the valley of the Rio Grande, the most important of which is San Juan, thirty miles north-west of Santa Fe.
They live totally distinct from the surrounding Mexicans, each village
having its own government, and no bond of union between them; but
all live in the greatest harmony with their neighbors. Each village




TOLTECCAN.


235


has a governor, a cacique or justice, a fiscal or constable, and a "council of wise men." Besides these civil officers there is also a war captain, who attends to military affairs.
The territorial government will average with that of other Territories. "Since the Occupation," meaning since the Americans took
possession, is a phrase in constant use like "Since the war" in the
South. After the conquest in 1590-'95 comes a list of forty-six Spanish and Mexican captain-generals
who governed the country, end-                 ^
ing with General Manuel Armijo
in 1846, who gathered a large    '
marched out to the pass command     /
ingseveral other Americans, and then marched
back again, abandoning thThey are now apparently as good rov Yankees as any
ince without firing a shot.  The/
Americans took possession, set up
of us.
They arfeeble govery tnment acious of all their old customs in the administra-nd passed
tion of law. They stipulated for this at the American occupation,
ousand General Kearney, by proclamation, continued all their judicials and
officers with the same code; and as the civil or canon law was in force
y         ~PUEBLO CACIQUE.
isever all Spanishother Americans, andit is the common law of New Mexico to-day.re
agaiUnder it the power of parents is practically as glmost without limits- any
Of us.
no matter what age theirous of asprll their old customs in th lives with histramother is subject to her orders always, and the Americade in occrural dis-on,
andtricts is occasionally called upon by a woman whose all their judicialof twentyoffive or withirty has rebelled. In such cases the acivil or canon law wagoes with hisforce
cnstable, arrests the i boy puts a riat into the hacommon law of New Mexico the mother-day.
ander bids her lay on until the youthpower of parents is practically almost without limites a
seno marttera living with an Ameir offsprican is punishedbe. A soneverely by her mowith hier
for some slighubject to her morders alwaysn; and though he alcaldprotest, the motherrural districts is occasionally called upon by a woman whose " boy " of twentyfive or thirty has rebelled. In such cases the alealde goes with his
constable, arrests the " boy," puts a riata into the hands of the mother
and bids her lay on until the youth roars for mercy. 'Sometimes a
8ei-iorita living with an American is punished severely by her mother
for some slight to her "man; " and though he protest, the mother
asserts her right.
Their lack of enterprise produces ludicrous results. I saw but one
Mexican wagon in Santa Fe, and that had broken down. Every
thing is transported on the backs of burros, the native breed of asses.




236


WESTERN WILDS.


Occasionally one loaded thus with wood loses his balance or trips and
goes over; then he can not rise till unloaded. One morning I noticed
a miserable little burro, no bigger than a good-sized ram, staggering
under an entire bedstead, piled up and strapped together on his back;
and another with an immense trunk strapped "cut-angular" from his
left hip to his right shoulder. They are the wealth of the poorer
class, and when the household donkey dies a Mexican family goes into
bankruptcy.
With these notes, set down in a month's travel, and from observation and conversation with all classes, I resume my personal experiences:
On the 26th, we left Albuquerque, just as the Sunday amusements
began. They usually have splendid religious services in the morning, a
dog-tussle about noon, and a cock-fight later in the day. In the evening,
if reflective, the "Greaser" smokes cigarettes and meditates; if sentimental, he goes courting. My soldier was sober again, by chance, and
eager to start, while I felt refreshed and ready for the desert.
The "June rise" of the Rio Grande (El Rio they call it there"The River") had come on a week or two earlier than common, and
a vast bayou covered two-thirds of the "bottom" between the city
and the main channel. In this we encountered dangerous whirls and
"chuck-holes,' the wagon often plunging in up to the bed, and two
or three times the little lead mules were obliged to swim a rod or so.
When we reached the narrow strip of high ground near the river, the
whole population of the string-town opposite were collected on the
bank, on their way to the cathedral and other Sabbath amusements.
Half a dozen families were laboring across in their own skiffs, while
the main ferry flat was loaded to the guards. The women, in gay
robes and black rebosas, were laughing and singing, while the men
screamed, swore and shouted directions all at once to the four boatmen, and the flat drifted in circles down the swift current. Fortunately, the actual channel is not more than four hundred yards wide,
and the flat only descended half a mile in making the passage. A
boat load of Mexicans on the way to church can make more noise
than two circus shows. Having passed the main current, the ferrymen jumped overboard, and, wading up to their armpits, with tow
ropes, hauled the flat, to shore. This trifling incident is a beautiful
illustration of the Mexican style of doing every thing.
Once landed, the male passengers took to the bayou without a
thought for their summer pantaloons; but the women, being gayly
dressed for church, dropped upon the grass, snatched off their under




TOL TECCAN.


237


clothing, raised their dresses "about so high," and waded to town
with the utmost nonchalance, laughing, chattering, arid singing hymns
to the Virgin! Here and there was seen a youth of unusual filial
piety, carrying his mother astride his shoulders; but most of the
women encountered the difficulties of the way with a hardihood fully
equal to that of the men.
Two hours of Mexican awkwardness set us across, and we left the
west bank for the sand hills just as the great bell of the adobe cathedral was calling these copper-colored Christians to morning mass.
The western hills looked bad enough from the town, and more than
kept their promise. One mile across the valley brought us to the first
mesa, not more than fifty feet above the river, and covered for four or
five miles with a tolerable growth of greasewood, cactus and bunchgrass, indicating some fertility. Then we entered upon another gradual ascent for two miles, which brought us fairly upon the desert.
The awful, the unutterable desert! Miles on miles of blistering sand
or rock glowing in the midday heat.
At 2 P. M. we halted for a brief rest, ungeared the mules, and
crawled under the wagon for shade. North, south and west we saw
only desolation; eastward a faint line of green marked the course of
the Rio.Grande. Oh, to be on its green banks once more. To us it
appeared " more to be desired than Abana and Pharpar," or all the
rivers of Judea and Damascus. The water in our canteens was exhausted before noon, and the soldier, just recovering from a long
debauch, was almost frantic with thirst. He tried the usual resource:
to scrape a bacon rind and chew it; and allow me to add, it is a
splendid substance with which to mitigate thirst. Soldiers tell me
they have gone two days without water, and avoided any serious suffering by this simple expedient. A piece of silver, or small splinter
of mountain pine, held in the mouth and rolled about with the
tongue, is often used for the same purpose.
In an hour the evening wind rose, and we moved on. At 5 P. M.,
we reached a down grade, and saw on the western horizon a straggling line of dwarf pines, indicating the course of the Puerco. Our
mules showed new life, gave a grateful whinny, and broke into a trot.
Fortunately w  found some water still in the channel, though fast
sinking. Three weeks ago the Rio Puerco ("Hog River") was a torrent; one week more, and it will be a resaca ("dry channel"). It
runs but two months in the year; at other times, travelers must hunt
along the dry bed till they find a brackish pool, or dig in the lowest
depressions. The water looked exactly like dirty milk, and its tem



238


WESTERN WILDS.


perature was about 70~; but it was grateful enough to us. The driver
drank two quart cups of it in ten minutes, and the poor animals
crowded down the only accessible place, and shoved each other into
the stream in their eagerness to get at the dirty fluid. Fortunately
the dirt which gives it color is so fine that one can not feel it grit in
his teeth, and aside from the earthy taste, the water is not disagreeable.
The valley of the Puerco, some two miles wide, is very fertile, and
the Mexicans had attempted,to settle it; but no plan could be devised to secure enough water and their settlement was abandoned.
We spread our blankets in one of their vacant houses, and slept
sweetly till 2 A. M., then took to the road to pass the next desert
before noon. All that was yesterday so drear has a fascinating beauty
by moonlight. The turbid Puerco looks like a band of molten silver;
the sand glitters with pearls, the red and yellow rocks are glorified in
the brilliant light. The stream had fallen two feet during the night,
from which the soldier inferred it would be dry in a day or two.
Thence we rise again to another desert, and in ten miles reach the
ancient border of the Navajoes (or Navahoes, if spelled as pronounced), a series of rugged gulches and narrow cations, bounded by
perpendicular walls of yellow soapstone. They run from north to
south, and form a break in the road something near a mile wide,
evidently the bed of a long extinct river. Wash gravel and marine
shells are heaped in fantastic piles by the wind. The deepest gulch
is known as Dead Man's Cafion, where are buried twenty whites massacred many years ago by the Navajoes.
We saw our first specimens of this tribe at Albuquerque: one chief
and eleven warriors, who had been into the Comanche country on a
fighting and stock-stealing expedition. They got no horses, but had
three men wounded, and were making their way homeward with only
such provisions as they could get in the Mexican settlements. The
sole ranchero at the canion told us they had passed there on Sunday,
having made the forty-four miles on foot in a little over one day.
Our early start avoided the midday heat upon the desert, but the drying air produced strange effects. My nose, lips, and wrists, which
blistered yesterday, peeled to-day, and I started to growna new cuticle
on those members. My nose was coloring like a new meerschaum,
forming a very striking feature of my countenance. How convenient
if a man could sprout new members in place of the lost, as a lobster
does his claw, or a bee his sting. But if the evolution philosophy be
sound, we only need to feel the want of such a faculty, and ardently




TOL TECCAN.


239


desire it for several hundred generations, and it will spontaneously
develop. Beautiful theory!
From Dead Man's Canion we rise gradually for twelve miles, traverse a wide pass walled in by mountains red with iron-stain, and descend again to a vast baked plain of barren clay, hard as the sun's
rays can cook it. On its western b)order appears a green oasis,
bounded by yellow hills scantily clad with timber and bunch-grass;
and on the baked plain beside the oasis stands the hamlet of El Rito
("The Little River"). We had made our drive of twenty-six miles
by noon.   The "Little River" is little indeed; at its best one can
jump across it; now it is all used for irrigation. The country is full
of dry channels, many of which are located as rivers on the map; but
in three-fourths of them one finds only piles of gravel and shifting
sands.
El Rito is a strange, old, isolated Mexican town, away out on the
edge of the desert, twenty-five miles from the nearest neighbor; and
yet it is a century old, and has doubtless contained the same families-perhaps forty in all-during all that time.   No church, no
school, no papers, no books, or very few, to introduce a new idea;
but family concerns, town concerns, the winter's rain and the spring
rise; the rare passage of a government train, and the rarer visit of
the itinerating padre to baptize the children and confess and absolve
the elders, make up their little world of incidents. The oasis is
plowed with a sharpened log, well seasoned and hewn into the shape
of an Irish spade, and the crops tended with hoe and rake; while the
goats, sheep and asses are pastured in the mountain hollows, and the
hens live upon crickets and earth-worms. If the family burro does
not die, if the goats (do well, if the water is sufficient for enough of
mais and chile (Colorado, and the hens lay eggs enough to send off by
the weekly peddler, and procure a little tobacco and flowered calico,
then Quien quiere por mas? (Who cares for more?) In this little
conmmunity of degenerate Spaniards A's children have married B's
children, and vice versa, and in the next generation double-cousins
married double-cousins, for a hundred years, till the wine of
life has run down to the very lees, and flows dull in sluggish veins
for want of a vitalizing current of alien blood. Every person in the
settlement is akin to most of the others.  The same practice has had
much to do with the degeneracy of the Pueblos, isolated as each of
their settlements is.
While Hamilton attended to his team, I walked about the town.
The men and larger boys were at work in the public field, or tend



240


WESTERN WILDS.


ing flocks among the hills; the women asleep, or sitting" on the dirt
floor smoking cigarettes of corn-shuck and tobacco, and the whole
juvenile population looked like a miserable batch of rags, sore eyes
and sin.  There was not a tree, a flower, or a spear of grass in the
place. Those persons I spoke to were even too lazy to understand
Spanish-as I spoke it, anyhow. They only grunted, " o sabe," and,
pointing to a rather superior adobe on the hill, remarked, 'Alli, un
Americano."
I found him an "American" indeed. His name was Ryan, and he
was "from Tipper-ra-r-ry, be dad!"  Years ago he drifted here, liked
it, married a Mexican woman, had several Pueblo servants and a flock
of sheep, and was general adviser, advocate and scribe for the settlement. A delegation of Piaeblos from the next town were at his'house
to complain of the Navajoes, who had been stealing their stock. He
took me to the public fonda, where I got a good supper of goat's
milk, tortillas and eggs, and a clean room, and spent the evening quite
pleasantly. The nights there are delightful; a little too cool towards
morning, perhaps, for comfortable sleeping in the open air, but with
abundant blankets we did well. The entire mountain range southwest
is said to be a mass of minerals-coal, iron and copper. It is a region
of curiosities. In the next valley south is the largest one of the abandoned cities of-whom?  Quien sabe, is the universal answer of Mexican and Indian. Most of the houses there are of sawed stone. Three
miles ahead, and on our road, is the noted Pueblo de Laguna ("Town
of the Lake"), probably the best built of all the Montezumas towns,
and so called because in former times the Pueblos built a vast causeway across the upper end of the valley, to retain the winter floods from
the mountain for summer irrigation.  Now the dam is broken down,
the lake is dry, the cultivable land reduced to a few acres, and the
pueblo slowly dying.
Starting next morning at the first flush of daylight, and climbing a
rocky trail for three miles, while the team made a circuit of seven, I
gained two hours for a visit to this place. The sun was just rising as
I entered the pueblo, and the inhabitants were mostly on the housetops preparing their implements for the day's work. The town is
situated upon the east end of an oval rock or mole, some two miles
long, and rising gradually at each end to a height of a hundred feet
above the bordering plain. The top is comparatively level, and the
sides fall off in a succession of abrupt benches, each a yard or so in
width and height, rendering the whole place a splendid natural fortification. On these rocks the Pueblos first built for protection, and are




TOLTECCAiN.


241


slow to change, though in the present lengthy peace some of them are
beginning to build out on the farm. The cacique was a man of considerable intelligence, spoke Spanish fluently, and gave me information with unusual courtesy.
Most of the houses have a second story, not more than half or onethird as extensive as the lower one; and some few have a sort of tower
or third story on top of the second. To this I several times signified
a desire to ascend, but the cacique either did not understand me, or
did not see fit to comply-probably the latter. Uneducated and semibarbarous people are generally suspicious on all matters connected with
their religion; and the accounts of missionaries, especially their first
accounts, among such people, must be received with caution. It is
nearly or quite impossible to make an Indian understand why any one
should want him to give up his religion and adopt that of another; he
can not assign any probable motive for such solicitude, and invariably
concludes there must be a swindle in it somewhere. He will readily
acknowledge that the white man's religion is true and good-for the
white man; and, of course, the Indian's religion is equally true and
good-for the Indian.
When the Spanish Jesuits "converted" these people, some two cent.
uries ago, they found it impossible to eradicate entirely the Montezumas faith, and so made a compromise. They gave them the Cathodc
religion, with its most impressive ceremonies, and permitted them to
keep all their Montezumas customs which did not amount to actual
idolatry. These consisted mostly of dances and feasts at stated times,
which had more of a national than a religious significance.
The houses here are solidly built of stone, cement, and adobes. The
joists are large as ordinary house-sills in the States, which I judged to
be for the better support of the upper stories, as I noticed the walls of
these in some instances not continuous with or resting on the walls
below, but built directly across and over the rooms. The interior of
the lower rooms was whitewashed and pleasantly neat, but in and
about many of the houses was an unpleasant odor of green hides, which
were hanging near, this being a general butchering time with them.
Their winfdows are made of a material they call acquarra-a kind of,
mica found in the adjacent mountains, which is translucent but not
transparent, and lights a room about as well as oiled paper. All the
Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona build in substantially the same
manner; and all accounts, as well as the ruins so numerous in the
country, indicate that the fashion has not changed for many centuries,.
This pueblo has a population of seven hundred, who cultivate in com16




242


WESTERN WILDS.


mon an oasis of some twelve square miles. Closely tended it produces
amazingly. Wooden plows were running, breaking up the ground for
late crops, and on the adjoining hills I saw large herds of sheep and
goats attended by young Pueblos.
Crossing this oasis we entered another broad canon, which we followed for some ten miles to the town of Cubero, somewhat better than
the ordinary Mexican hamlet.  It is built on a series of shelving
rocks; some of the dwellings are of stone, nearly all have stone floors,
and the place seemed literally basking in the fierce rays of a New
Mexican sun. There we found another party of Pueblos on a general
spree. One able-bodied "buck" was staggering along the street, his
wife after him and occasionally thwacking him on the head or back
with the butt end of a heavy whip, while the whole Mexican population
looked on laughing and cheering.
Thence we crossed another small oasis, traversed another rugged
caflon, and came out upon another small green tract, and to McCarty's
ranche, where we spent the night. McCarty is an Irishman, married
to a Mexican woman, whom I
found superior to most of her
class.  Beyond McCarty's is a
fertile valley, through which runs. A            ^the line of the Thirty-fifth Parallel Road; and beyond that a
gorge, not more than two hundred yards wide, opens into another valley. The last three miles
of the former valley is mostly
S marsh, and thither the officers
from Wingate often go to hunt
ducks.  At the west end rise
"WOMAN'S RIGHTS."      the springs which water the valley. They boil out from under the rock, half a dozen streams of cold,
clear water. But a few rods from them the lava beds begin. As I
walked over the plain, it looked as if the lava had just cooled. I
could see all the little waves and ripples in its surface, and near the
springs it had evidently overflowed in successive layers, each an inch or
so thick, the lower cooling a little before the one above it was deposited.  In places these layers had been broken directly across,
folded and contorted, leaving singular gaps and fissures, the sides of
which appeared coated in places with lime or sulphur, and in others
by what looked like red sealing-wax turned to stone. Where cotk



TOL TECCAN.


243


torted or twisted, the lava rock presented precisely the same appearance as if one should lay down successive folds of tarred canvas till
the pile was ten or twelve feet thick, and then roll the mass over and
over and into long heaps.  Some extensions of this twisted mass
reached even to the edge of the springs, and I saw indications where
it had overflowed into the pools; but most of the way across the valley
one could trace the division between the lava and the original rock
base on to which it had flowed as easily as with a daub of mud thrown
upon the floor of.a house..By a rise of perhaps ten feet we entered upon this mala pais, and
soon came to where the lava was not in waves, but seemed to have
cooled in a mass, presenting a granulated appearance, much like cooling sugar; and a little farther we found it light and frothy looking, as
if a hot, foaming current had cooled to stone, porous and spongy, like
pumice-stone. A mile westward brought us out into the broader valley, and, looking backward, it seemed to me that the lava flow had
been choked in the narrow pass about the time the supply was exhausted.  Five miles over the level land brought us to another descent, leading to another oval plain; and, running in a serpentine course across it, I saw a shining line which I judged to be
water-the irregular course of some mountain stream. But it soon
appeared too dazzlingly bright, and we found it only a narrow, dry
gully, bottom and sides crusted with salt and alkali, painful to the
eye. A little water runs there in winter-just enough to bring down
the alkali from the mountains.
From the plain of the mala pais we descend a little into Red Valley, about -Agua Azul.  It i's walled in by fearfully abrupt mountains
of black and red stone in an irregular circle, and is about five miles by
three, containing at least eight sections of land of the utmost fertility.
Near the bordering mountains the soil is red, giving name to the valley
and the central butte, but lower down it is dark. Running water was
found only at the south-west corner of the valley, and there M.
Provencher first began to cultivate the soil, when he established the
ranche four years before.  The yield from this soil of volcanic origin
was astonishing; wheat produced thirty-six bushels per acre; corn
thirty-eight fanegas (a fanega is 136 pounds), and oats grew to the
height of a man's head, yielding bounteously. But only one crop was
raised; then the dry season, which lasted for three years in western
New Mexico, set in; the water failed, and it is a question whether the
place can ever be utilized.  Give but a stream of pure water, and this




244


WESTERN WILDS.


little basin would bloom like a garden, supporting a thousand people
in affluence.
About 3 o'clock next morning we were awakened by a terrible
racket and barking of dogs, just in time to see that our mules had
broken corral, and were lighting out towards Wingate with a speed
which showed there was no place like home to them. The soldier
went in pursuit, and I visited the Red Butte and the old crater. The
butte is nearly two miles long and a mile wide, rising evenly from the
plain on every side, and so abruptly, by a series of "benches" or narrow terraces, that it can only be ascended in two or three places, and
the dimensions on top are only one-fourth less than at the bottom.
M. Provencher's theory is that the entire valley was the original
crater, and, when it had slowly died out, a smaller one formed at the
center. The butte appears from the plain to be level on top; it is, in
fact, a mere shell-a little copy of the walled basin around it.  From
the narrow rim there is an abrupt fall towards the center, and inside
it has the appearance of an old furnace, long since burnt out and
abandoned.
At midnight the soldier returned, hitched up at daylight, and, in a
steaming state of military wrath, whipped his mules through the fortythree miles to Wingate by sundown.  Twenty miles east of that post
we passed the dividing summit of the Rocky Mountains (or Sierra
Madre; both names are used indifferently there). We reach the western slope through a long pass, in many respects resembling the South
Pass of the old California trail. It is simply a high and sandy valley
through the mountains, bounded on the north by almost perpendicular
sandstone cliffs from five hundred to a thousand feet in height, and on
the south by scantily-timbered hills which rise one above another to
the highest mountain peak.  In the pass and neighboring hills rain is
frequent; twenty miles east or west of it none falls for three or four
months at a time.  The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad line is located
through this pass, and the grade is so gentle that no difficulties are met
with. For three hundred miles west of the Rio Grande nature seems
to have provided a series of valleys especially for a railroad.  The
real trouble is that the country has so little in it worth building a
railroad for.  It is a splendid country to travel through; a miserably
poor one to stop in to make a "' stake."
On the evening of May 31st we drove into Wingate; my soldier
"reported," and 'in precisely twenty minutes was a close prisoner in
the guard-house.-" held for trial."
" Chargt-Unwarranted disposition of stores placed in his care."




TOL TECCA_.


245


" Specification-In this, that the said Frank Hamilton, being intrusted
with a' team to transport one thousand pounds of potatoes from Santa
Fe to this post, did unwarrantably dispose of three hundred pounds of
the same on the way, etc., etc."
He was found guilty of this, and more; and during my stay I was
daily pained at sight of him " cleaning quarters," with a most uncomfortable bracelet attachment to his ankle.
Take him for all in all, he was the most unfortunate traveling companion I ever had.
Moral-Don't go for a regular soldier; or, if you do, don't trade
government potatoes to Mexican women.
Eight days I remained at Fort Wingate, and enjoyed every moment
of the time. Having letters to Lieutenant S. W. Fountain, formerly
of Pomeroy, Ohio, he made me comfortable at his quarters, and a full
hand at his mess. Captain A. B. Kauffman, commanding the post in
the absence of Colonel Wm. Redwood Price; Lieutenant D. R. Burnham, of Company ', H," Fifteenth United States Infantry; and Dr. R.
S. Vickery, Post Surgeon, were most courteous andspleasant officials. If
I had to be exiled to a Far Western fort, I don't know any other command I should prefer to go with. Lieutehant H. R. Brinkerhoff,
formerly of Union County, Ohio, also assisted me to* much information
as to the surrounding country; and he and his estimable lady made my
stay more like a renewal of home-life than one would have thought
possible in this wilderness.
Fort Wingate is nearly two hundred miles west of Santa Fe, directly at the head of the Rio Puerco of the West. Along this stream
a sloping valley can be followed down to the Colorado Chiquito
(" Little,") and down that to the main Colorado-this post being thus
on the "Pacific slope." Just south of the fort rises a rugged spur of
the Sierra Madre, from which Bear Spring (or Ojo 4el Oso) sends out
a cold, clear stream, sufficient to turn a mill-wlteel. Two miles below
the channel is dry; the loose red earth has drunk it all. With this
stream the soldiers irrigrate a few acres of garden, producing most of
the vegetables except potatoes. These can not be grown in the greater
part of New Mexico; the vines grow night and day, and the result is,
in each hill a handful of dwarfed tubers, about the size of chestnuts.
The latitude of Wingate is 35~ 28'; the elevation 6,600 feet. Hence
the summers are short and the nights cool. Corn will not silk; wheat
is generally cut off in the flower. Only the short-lived plants come to
perfection. The records show that drought has been increasing for


/




246


WESTERN WILDS.


forty years. During my stay they enjoyed the only heavy rain for
three years.
Gypsum, salt and iron are abundant.  A short distance west of the
fort is a whole mountain of gypsum, so to speak-enough to bury an
eastern county. Neither gold nor silver has been found in paying
quantities. Precious stones of various kinds have been found near,
particularly garnets and turquoises. Lieutenant H. R. Brinkerhoff
has a large collection of curious stones, picked up within a mile or
two of the fort. Magnetic stones, the size of one's fist, can be had by
the bushel. Some of them, when thrown loosely upon the ground,
will roll over towards each other till they gather in a greup. All the
hills are covered with timber, and in the larger canons is abundance
of pine fit for lumber. The mountains north and east present the appearance of a succession of lofty cones, with here and there an oval
hill. In many adjacent valleys are ruins of towns, and acecquias,
where no water now runs at any season. Thirty miles south-west is
a valley strewn with ruins, indicating a large settlement; it is now a
desert.
Wingate is the center of a region of curiosities. Among our visitors were some Zuni Indians from the great pueblo forty miles west.
This is an enornmots building of five terraced stories, containing eight
hundred semi-civilized Indians. In this great human hive are carried
on all the complicated affairs of a community life: government, manufactures, art, and religious rites. They cultivate their little patches
with great skill, producing abundance of corn, wheat, beans, and
melons; their mercantile wealth is in sheep, goats, blankets, beads, and
pottery. They are severely chaste, any departure from virtue being
rigidly punished. They once had the art of writing, and still preserve
one book; but the last man who could read it died many years ago,
and the priests regard it merely as a holy relic. It consists simply of
a mass of finely dressed skins, bound on one side with thongs; the
leaves are thickly covered with characters and drawings in red, blue,
and green-squares, diamonds, circles, serpents, eagles, plants, flying
monsters and hideous human heads. One of their caciques says it is
the history of their race, and shows that they have moved fourteen
times, this being their fifteenth place of settlement. No Spanish priest
has ever been permitted to enter their town; their religion appears to
be a mixture of Spiritism and Sabianism.
They are quite domestic in their tastes, and fond of pets. Turkeys
and tame eagles abound among them, living about the terraces of the
pueblo, and even in their dwellings. They are keen traders, and have




TO L TEC CAN.


247


most perfect command of their features. The few I saw had a uniformly sad, mild expression of the eye, but were quick in motion,
well-made, and rather graceful. Unfortunately I wag compelled, for
company's sake, to take a route north of Zuni; and did not know its
value to the explorer till I had passed westward.
A hundred miles north of Wingate are the great ruins on the De
Chaco River, supposed to be those of the "Seven Cities of Cibola"
(See-vo-la); and north of those, on the San Juan in Colorado, the
ruins, as supposed, of a fortified city of the Aztecs. One of the walls
still stands, five hundred feet in length, with joinings as true and
smooth as in any of our buildings.  They were constructed of hard
sandstone, and probably enclosed a city of several thousand inhabitants. Lieutenant McCormick, who explored all of them, thinks that
at least a quarter, possibly half, of a million people devoted to agriculture, once occupied the system of valleys opening upon the San
Juan. They are gone long ago, and their places are occupied by the
nomadic races: Utes, Navajoes and Apaches.   The streams upon
which they depended dried up, and cultivators necessarily yielded to
hunters and shepherds; just as we find wandering Arabs encamped in
the ruins of Baalbec and Palmyra; or barbarous nomads wandering
over the once populous and fertile Babylonia.
Here, too, we find the INavajoes at home; a most interesting race of
barbarians, friendly in peace but savage in war. These are the first
Indians I have met who have not the stereotyped "Indian face "-the
face we have heard described so often, either overcast with a stern and
melancholy gravity, or lively only with an uncertain mixture of
cunning and ferocity. Their countenances are generally pleasing, even
mild and benevolent. They have many young fellows whose faces
show the born humorist. Wit, merriment, and practical jokes enliven
all their gatherings and, quite contrary to our ideas of Indian character, they laugh loud and heartily at every thing amusing. They are
quite inquisitive, too, and seem vastly pleased to either see or hear
something new. Both men and women work, and are quite industrious until they have accumulated a fair share of property; then they
seem content to take things easy. But here, as elsewhere, only the
worst class of Indians spend their time about the fort. Their women
come and go in frequent groups, and may be found almost any payday in the adjacent woods; the result being that Dr. Vickery has a
4ery extensive practice among the private soldiers.
On the 6th of June, I set out for Fort Defiance, in company with
Wm. Burgess, blacksmith for the Navajo Agency. The distance is




248


WESTERN WVILDS.


forty-five miles, which we traversed in nine hours, finding water at
but one point on the road, namely, Stinking Springs, sometimes politely called Sheep Springs. Our mules drank of it, under protest,
and with many sniffs and contortions of the lips; and I tasted it from
curiosity. It looks like a solution of blue-dye, and tastes like whiteoak bark. To some it is a dangerous cathartic, but to most a powerful astringent. Four miles from Wingate the valley makes a great U
to the northward, and our road runs over the foot-hills for three
miles; then enters the valley again, which there narrows to a mere
pass. A vast dyke of hard trap-rock extends across the country from
north to south, standing out above the sandstone like an artificial
stone battlement, and runs out from each side of the valley in abrupt
causeways, leaving a rugged gap only a hundred yards wide. This
opens into a broad and fertile valley, across which three miles bring
us to the Rio Puerco of the West. The Puerco I crossed.on the 26th
of May runs south-east into the Rio Grande; this one south-west into
the Colorado Chiquito. We cross this Puerco, rise again into the"
northern foot-hills, and stop for noon in a pifion thicket. Next we
reach the "Hay Stacks," a series of cones of yellow sandstone, something over a hundred feet high, and fifty feet wide at the base, running
up to a sharp point. They stand upon an almost level plain, but half
a mile away is a rocky ledge containing a vast natural bridge, arched
gateway, and all the forms of rocky tower and battlement which cal
be imagined. Eight miles farther brought us to Defiance, situated at
the foot of a low rocky range, and almost in the mouth of Cation
Benito.
Approaching the post across a sandy plain we first come to a dry
river-bed, with enough of stunted grass to show that water still runs
there sometimes. Following up the stream we find first a pool of
water, then a flock of shleep, then Indian farms, and occasionally a
hogan, from which the Navajo squaws and children peep out at us
with a sort of hungry curiosity. We cross a common field of a hundred acres or so, which the Navajoes have thrown up into beds two
or three rods square for irrigation, and ride into the fort, which was
my headquarters for the next ten days.




I


S        CHAPTER        XVI.
WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.
IT is bright noon in the gorge of Canon Benito. The red cliffs
glow in the hot sunshine, and the dark pool below, the only body of
water in an area of hundreds of miles, is now simmering warm. At
midnight it will be cold as ice-water. The Navajo boys are plunging
and splashing in the tepid bath, their handsome dark bodies shining
through the clear fluid like bronze statues vivants. Around each
boy's waist is the tight "geestring," fromnt which a single strip of cloth
runs between the limbs from
front to back-these two artides never being removed
steep trail from the south
comedians, a band  consequently far
more, shapely and graceful.        COMING TO THE{'< COUNT."
- An occasional yelp indicates that some hapless cur, of the little black,
anfiery-eyed and fierce species kept by the Navajoes, has got under the
exsharp hoof ofected in a fewbroncho; then a loud chorus of not unmusical cries
shows that the band have recognized their friends coming from anutiopposite direction, and soon they unite in the quadrangle inclosed byus
thway, bearing the pappoos.s
(24and household goods; the
men stalk in front, carrying —
their weapons and articles
for barter; behindeome the
squaws, less heavily laden
than is usual among the In-   '
dians, and consequently far
more, shapely and graceful.        COMING TO THlE "COUNT."
An occasional yelp indicates that some hapless cur, of the little black,
fiery-eyed and fierce species kept by the Navajo-es, has got under the
sharp hoof of a broneko; then a loud chorus of not unmusical cries
shows that the band have recognized their friends coming from an
opposite direction, and soon they unite in the quadrangle inclosed by
the Agency buildings.
(249).


4 *




t


250                    WESTERN WILDS.
'There the scene is gay. The girls have on their brightest blankets;
each neck is encircled by numerous strands of beads, the number
indicating the wearer's wealth; the men are fancifully touched up with
red and white paint, while even the withered old squaws have tricked
out their worn bodies and weather-beaten visagcs in some remnants of
faded finery. Groups are seen here and there gambling with Spanish
cards; others are playing a peculiar aboriginal game like pitch and
toss, while even the boys are shooting at a mark for wagers of lootchsin. The men are tall and vigorous; the women finer looking than
those of any other tribe, the younger ones often very handsome. Garnets, quartz crystals, flakes of mica, chips of aqua-marine, and a dozen
kinds of glittering stones are displayed in quantities, and often worn
as ornaments. Occasionally a slab of malachite is seen, and more
rarely a turquoise; for the whole region abounds in curious stones and
petrifactions, with more fossils than Agassiz could classify in a month.
All9 the hillocks made by the desert ants are found to be dotted with
garnets, which, both plainsmen and Indians say, the insects have gathered from the adjacent plain and piled there-evidently attracted by
their brightness, whether from a sense of beauty or otherwise.
Three hours before one would not have known there was an Indian
in the vicinity; now the square is full, and others are still pouring
in. 'But all are doomed to disappointment. Congress has been too
busy President-making to pass the appropriation bills, and the agent
sadly says: "No provisions yet."  It is a time of scarcity with them
too. The annuity for the previous. year has long been exhausted;
their crops for 1870 were very poor; in 1871 there was a total failure. Their miserable, dry, burnt-out and barren country is yearly
growing dryer and more barren; the bunch grass is abundant, as it
grows without summer rains, but they have not had time to recruit
their flocks since the devastating Navajo war, and starvation threatens
half the tribe. The last grain in the agency store-house was issued
on the 14th of June; the Indians have eaten all their oldest sheep and
goats, saving the young, especially the ewes, to the last, and when I
visit their hogans I sometimes see them gnawing away at what look
suspiciously like equine shanks. The Agency employes have not been
paid for a year, and have to buy their own provisions from the nearest
Mexican settlements. Still the Navajoes are cheerful and lively, in
their worst troubles still looking for better times; and I spend many
days of enjoyment rambling among them.
My first task is to learn enough of the language for the usages of
common life; and a severe task it is. I begin with ah-tee-chee (" what




WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA..


251


is it?") and proceed to the words for bread or meat, fire and water, viz:
chinneahgo, knuh and toh. The language is extremely nasal, equally
guttural, and abounds in sibilants and triple consonants, many sounds
having no equivalent in English. In every band are some Mexicans,
captured young and adopted by the tribe; and a few Spanish words
are in common use, but so changed in the pronunciation as to make
them neW. Thus Americano becomes Melicano; azucar, (" sugar") tsucollo; serape, (" blanket") selap, and ombre ("man") ombly; for no
Indian or Chinaman can pronounce the r. Their social customs and
adornments have a singular resemblance to those of the Japanese.
They treat their women as well as most white nations. Men do the
out-door work, women that of the household. The latter are very
communicative, humorous and mirthful, and nothing seems to amuse
them so much as my attempts at their language, at which they listen
and laugh by the hour. They say that a woman first taught them how
to weave blankets and make water-jars, for which cause it is a point
of honor with a Navajo never to strike a woman.
In my visits I frequently heard them speak of En-now-lo-kyh, sometimes joined with the word el-soo-see, and as I stooped to enter a
hogan, could sometimes hear the head of the family call to order with
"' Hah-koh! El-soo-see En-now-lo-kyh!" Learning that this was my
Navajo name, I sought the interpreter, highly flattered at my noble title,
to learn its meaning. A 1road grin adorned his features as he informed
me that the two words, translated literally, meant "Slim-man-with-awhite-eye." Feeling this to be somewhat personal, and inferentially
abusive, I had him explain somewhat of my business to them and
construct a name indicative of my profession; and henceforth I hope
to become historical among the Navajoes by an unpronounceable word
of six syllables, meaning in English " Big Quill."  When a communication is twice translated, it triples the ambiguity; and that is tlle
method employed with them: one interpreter speaks English and
Spanish, the other Spanish and Navajo. I made my remarks in the
plainest, most terse English I could command, which the American
translated into the florid Castilian; this, in turn, the Mexican rendered
in the hissing, complicated phrases and cumbrous polysyllables of the
aboriginal *tongue.
It was but seventy miles to the ruins on the De Chaco, and I had
Arranged to visit them with Navajo guides, when one of the party
which had gone to San Juan arrived, completely exhausted, and
announced that Agent Miller had been murdered, and all their horses
stolen but one; that he had started immediately with that, and the rest




252


WESTERN WILDS.


of the party were coming afoot. Next day the others arrived, quite
worn out, having walked a hundred miles in three days, carrying
their baggage. Their account is as follows: The party consisting of
Agent Miller, B. M. Thomas, (Agency Farmer,) John Ayers and the
Interpreter, Jesus Alviso, left Defiance on the 4th of June, to inspect
the San Juan Valley, with a view of locating the Navajo Agency
there. The examination was satisfactory, as they found one feftile and
beautiful valley near the river, capable of being irritated by a single
acecquia, and sufficient to support the whole tribe. At the same time,
three others left the settlements on a prospecting tour, reached San
Juan one day after the Agent's party, and were camped twelve miles
from them on the bluff. Neither party dreamed of danger from the
Utes, as that tribe had been at peace many years; and, though they
annoyed the Navajoes greatly, had not molested white men. On the
morning of the 11th, just at dawn, Miller's companions were awakened
by the report of 'a gun and whistling of an arrow, both evidently
fired within a few rods of them. They sprang to their feet, and saw
two Utes run into the brush; ten minutes after they saw them emerge
from the opposite side of the thicket, and ride up the bluff, driving
the company's horses before them. They did not know, at first sight,
that the Utes were hostile, or that they had fired at them. John
Ayers spoke to Miller, who did not reply; he then shoved him with
his foot, still he did not wake. They piled off his blanket, and
found him dead. The Ute's bullet had entered the top of his head
and passed down behind his right eye, without disarranging his clothing in the slightest. His feet were crossed, and hands folded exactly
as when he went to sleep; his eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted
into a faint smile,,as if from a pleasant dream-all showed beyond
doubt that he had passed from sleep to death without a struggle or a
sigh. Thus died James H. Miller, a true Christian, a faithful official
and brave man.
Congress did not adjourn without passing the Indian Appropriation
Bill, and soon came the welcome news that the agent at Santa Fe had
started several thousand bushels of grain for Defiance. Again the employ's took heart; there was joy in the hogans. Mr. Thomas V.
Keams, Agency Clerk, was acting in place of Miller, deceased, and I
gladly acknowledge the many courtesies I received at his hands.  Indeed, all the employ~s, like people generally in these out-of-the-way,
places, vied wit1 each other in making my stay pleasant. I recall particularly Dr. J. Menaul and lady, preacher and teacher for the Agency;
Lionel Ayers, post-trader; J. Dunn, wagon-master; A. C. Damon,




WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.


253


butcher, and Andy Crothers, in charge of grain-room. Altogether,
the whites at the post numbered sixteen men and four women-a little
colony far beyond the border of civilization, and the last whites I was
to see for some hundreds of miles.
The situation is pleasant and romantic. The Benito Hills, averaging
five hundred feet above the plain, run directly north and south.  On
the west side of them is a vast inclosed basin, from which Cailon
Benito breaks directly through the hills-a sharp, abrupt gorge, square
across the formation, with perpendicular walls entirely inaccessible.
The east end of the canon broadens into a little valley, at the mouth
of which, though out on the plain, the fort is situated. A river once
ran through the gorge, of which the successive periods can be traced
on the sandstone walls to a height of two hundred feet. There seems
to have been the original bottom of the cafnon, whence the river steadily cut deeper until it had completely drained the basin above. The
river had long been dry when the fort was located, but several springs
in the east end of the cafion created a stream sufficient to irrigate 4
section of the land on the plain. Here the Navajoes had raised corn
and melons from time immemorial; they had no other vegetables when
found" by the whites. The present occupants of Defiance have thfown
a dam across this end of the caion, producing a beautiful artificial lake
some three hundred yards long, and rising so high as to leave barely
room for a wagon-road. The lake is strongly alkaline, but a few rods
below is a spring of the nicest and purest water to be found in these
mountains. It is the one important treasure of this post, which, without it, would be almost uninhabitable. In the States, towns are located according to convenience for trade; in the mountains, settlement
is determined by the presence of never-failing water.
I had exhausted the sights near Defiance, and was eager to be off.
Mr. Keams called in Juerro, the old war-chief of the Navajoes, and
together they selected an intelligent young man to be my guide to
Moqui. The Navajoes were scattering out on their summer hunt and
trading trips, and we were likely soon to have abundant company.
My newwguide took a stout burro for the trip, while I rode a goodsized American horse.  I was to provision myself and one man to the
Mormon settlements, and one man back, besides his fee. Thus ran
the bill: Thirty pounds of flour, ten pounds of bacon, ten pounds of
sugar, five pounds of coffee, and six boxes of sardines, the whole costing but twenty dollars. The same sum to my guides, and five dollars
for the hire of a burro, made the total expense, for a trip of nearly five
hundred miles, forty-five dollars-not much more than railroad fare.




254


WESTERN WILDS.


My horse, bridle, saddle, lariat, gun (a Spencer), and two Navajo
blankets cost me two hundred dollars' My Navajo knew a few words
of Spanish, perhaps fifty in all-about equal to my list in his language;
but, unfortunately for general conversation, our words covered about
the same objects. Such words as the following were in constant use:
Tolth...    Water.
Klohh..    Grass.
Chizz...    Wood.
Knuhh...    Fire.
Klee...   Horse.
Klitt...  Smoke.
Hahkohh...   Come.
Tennehh...    Man.
I represent the sharp accent at the end of some words by doubling
the final letter, and the prolonged nasal sound by nh.  The numbers
as far as twenty-two run thus: Ili, nahkee, tah, dteen, estlahh, hostonn, susett, seepee, nostyy, niznahh, klitzetta, nahkeetsetta, tahtsetta,
dteentsetta, estlahta, hostahta, susetetta, seepetta, nostytsetta, nahta,
nahta kli, nahta nahkee, etc. " Thirty " is tahta, " forty " dteenta, and
so on, while after each the ten integers run as at first.
We are off before noon of June 18th, the whole white population
joining us in a "stirrup cup," and white, brown, and red waving a
good-bye. John, as I christened my Navajo, led the way up Cafion
Benito, and over a low spur of red hills into a beautiful green valley
about a rile square, quite level, and covered with grass a foot high.
On every side of it rose bare columns and ridges of sand-rock, but
from their base trickled here and there tiny rills of water-enough to
keep the valley fertile. Herds of sheep and goats, attended by Navajo girls, and some horses attended by boys, enlivened the scene.
Through this, and on to another sand-ridge, then three miles more,
brought us to a long narrow valley, winding for miles among the hills,
and looking as if it had once been the bed of a river, and been heaved
up by some convulsion. For hours we crossed such valleys every two
or three miles, none of them more than a hundred yards wide, and
separated by barren ridges.  The grass in the valleys was rank and
thrifty; the ridges had nothing but an occasional sprig of sage-brush
or cactus.  Every-where along the grass-plats were shepherd girls
with considerable flocks, each girl carrying a set of Navajo spools and
spindle and a bunch of wool, on which she worked in the intervals of
watching. These spools are very similar in shape to those used in our
rural districts, but large and clumsy. With a pointed stick, turned in
the right hand, the spinner runs the wool on to the larger spool in




WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.


255


rolls somewhat smaller than the little finger. Having filled it, and
transferred to a smaller stick, she runs it to the smaller spool in the
form of a very coarse yarn, when it is ready for the "filling" in a
blanket. Herding is the most laborious work the Navajo girls have
to do. They have all the advantages of the healthful climate, without
the fatigue of long expeditions, and are, as a rule, stronger and healthier than the men. They are the only Indian girls I ever saw who
even approximate to the Cooper ideal. Their dress is picturesque, consisting of separate waist.and skirt; the former leaves the arms bare,
and is made loose above and neat at the waist; the latter is of flowered
calico, with a leaning to red and black, and terminates just below the
knee in black border or frills. Neat moccasins complete the costume,
the limbs being left bare generally in the sumfter. They are very
shapely and graceful, and their strength is prodigious.
This plateau, the ridges being of sandstone and the narrow valleys of
mixed sand and black earth, is at least 7,000 feet above the sea.
Thence we descended to a wooded hollow, again toiled up to the
plateau level, and soon entered the most magnificent forest I have seen
outside of California. A cold wind had chilled us on the ridges, but
in the forest there was a dead calm, though we could hear the breeze
sighing far above us. This splendid park continued for ten wiles;
then we descended to another valley, where the soil was evidently rich,
though perfectly bare for want of water; but around the edges was a
bordering meadow of good grass, spangled with red and yellow flowers. This valley is an oval some five miles long, opening northward,
and lacks only water to become a little Eden.  From this we rose to
another forest, also of sugar-pines, but not so large or thrifty as the
first. My guide informs me that these forests are as long as they are
wide, and, as we traveled twelve or fifteen miles through them,
they must cover some two hundred square miles. This will be a great
source of wealth to the Navajoes, if they learn how to use it.
The timber continued to the entrance of Bat Canion, by which we
enter the De Chelley. There my guide points to a side gulch, exclaiming, " Tohh klohh no mas," and we stop for the night. Hoppling the
horse for a night's grazing, we sample our provisions, with satisfactory
results, and retire. Navajo blankets will not admit the moisture of
the ground, even if there had been any, which there was not; and with
two over me, and the saddle-blanket below me, I was comfortable till
towards morning, when the cold was intense. We hasten to descend
into the cation before the sun is hot, and go down from the grove upon
a sandy plain, dotted with scrubby hemlocks, and sometimes with tim

0




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ber of larger growth.  The surroundings all show that we are on the
Pacific coast; the dry, gray and yellow grass, straight sugar-pines and
scraggy hemlocks, and the soft airs loaded with resinous odors. We
enter next upon a vast flat of sandstone, on which the little feet of
Navajo burros have cut the trail into a groove two inches deep, and
cross it to the head of Bat Caflon.  The first view is discouraging.
We come suddenly to an abrupt break in the sandstone, no more than
a rod wide, down which we can look a thousand feet perpendicular to
the yellow bottom. A few hundred yards.beyond we find a side
groove, which lets us down to the first offset, and thence, by a succession
of rocky grooves, we work our way with cautious steps to the bottom.
We appear to be at the bottom of a vast funnel, but there is a pass
three rods wide, still leading downward. Soon the cliffs above us
overhang, and we pass through a gorge where the sun never shines,
and thousands of gaunt bats, of a strange species, inhabit the crevices
of the cliffs, and flit about in midday twilight. According to my
guide, this is the place by way of which cowardly Navajoes must enter
the spirit-land after death.
Passing this the narrow walls give back, and we are in a little
valley with running water and occasional clumps of grass, and
boundcd by perpendicular cliffs. As we proceed, the valley gets wider,
but the walls appear to overhang rather than maintain a plumb line.
Occasionally, an entirely detached rock is seen standing out from some
sharp corner where there is a turn in the cafion, a sort of tower several hundred feet high, and no more than a hundred thick, its sides
and summit cut into a thousand fanciful shapes by the action of sand
and wind. Other pieces of the cliff appear to have been loosened, and
to have slipped down; and in many places there were enormous slabs
two or three hundred feet high leaning against the wall. Wind and
loose sand had cut the face of the cliff into ten thousand fanciful
shapes: elephants, hippopotami, alligators, and most ludicrous human
heads looked down upon us, and from a peak two thousand feet overhead a gigantic bear appeared just plunging from the summit.
"C ilahloka! " exclaimed the guide, and following the direction of
his finger, I saw the "woman," a shepherd girl, springing down over
the rocks in a narrow side gulch.  She showed me, through the
narrow opening into the gulch, that the latter widened out behind the
cliffs into a rocky valley where her herd of goats were feeding. She
preferred the common request for chin-ne-ah-go (bread), and in return
for a small gift, conducted us to a plat of good grass, near the junction of Canon de Chelley, where we let our animals graze two hours,




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as I intended remaining in the canon all day. We had scarcely got
our baggage piled, before the whole community of three families were
about us. I pacified them with tobacco, preferring, if we got into a
strait, to do without that, rather than bread.
Bat Canion there runs nearly straight west, and is joined by Cation
de Chelley from the north-east; the meeting of the two and the turn
below produces three grand peaks, facing to one center, some fifteen
hundred feet high, and quite perpendicular. But the most remarkable
and unaccountable feature of the locality is where the two canons
meet. There stands out a hundred feet from the point, entirely isolated, a vast leaning rock tower, at least twelve hundred feet high,
and not over two hundred thick at the base, as if it had originally
been the sharp termination of the cliff, and been broken off and
shoved further out. It almost seems that one must be mistaken, that
it must have some connection with the cliff, until one goes around it
and finds it a hundred feet or more from the former. It leans at an
angle from the perpendicular of at least fifteen degrees; and lying
down at the base on the under side, by the best " sighting " I could
make, it seemed to me that the opposite upper edge was directly over
me. That is to say, mechanically speaking, its center of gravity
barely falls within the base, and a heave of only a yard or two more
would cause it to topple over. Appearances indicate that it was
originally connected with the point of the cliff, but the intermediate
and softer sand-rock has fallen, been reduced to sand, and wafted
away down the canon. Climbing to some of the curious round holes
in the cliff I could see the process of wear going on; the harder particles of the sand blown into the holes, were being whirled about by the
wind, slowly and steadily boring into the cliffs, and beginning that
carving which is to result in more of the grotesque shapes.
It was but a few miles now, the guide informed me, till we should
reach the celebrated "cliff cities" which have made this canion so
famous. While leaning on the pommel of my saddle in an after-dinner rest, I was startled by a shout from my guide of "Ah-yee! Ahyee, Melicano, ettah-hoganday!"  ("There, there, sir American; the
mnountain-houses.") Looking, I saw the first hamlet, a small collection of stone huts some fifteen hundred feet above the canton bed, and
perhaps three hundred feet below the summit. One glance served to
disprove many of the theories advanced about rope ladders and the
like. It could not have been reached thus, for the cliff overhung
considerably both above and below it. Indeed, a rope dropped from
the brow of the cliff above would have swung over the cafion a
17




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WESTERN WILDS.


hundred feet farther out than the ledge on which the houses stood.
As near as I could judge at the distance, the ledge was fifty feet
wide, and the houses some twenty feet square.    Evidently the
" Aztecs" who boarded there did not go to bed by means of a ropeladder.
My guide was now all life and animation, shouting and calling my
attention to every thing of note on the cliffs as we walked our horses
slowly down the sandy stream. He seemed to take as much interest
in the ettah-hoganday as I did. An hour more brought us to a better
object of study: the ruins of a considerable village were on the bottom
of the cation, by the foot of the cliff, and about a hundred feet
straight above them, ten or a dozen houses in perfect preservation,
standing all together on a ledge a hundred feet wide, and completely
inaccessible.  *bove the village the cliff was perpendicular for a
hundred feet or more, then gradually swelled outwardly till it extended considerably over the houses, leaving them thus actually in a
great crevice in the rock. Here was a wonder. My Navajo ran
about with the activity of a cat, and in several places managed to
climb up twenty feet or so, then the smooth wall cut off further progress. Hunting along the rock he found and called my attention to
some holes looking like steps cut into the stone, which seemed to
lead up to a point where one of the peculiar stone slabs I have described leaned against the cliff. The opposite side of the cafion was
accessible, and not more than two hundred yards distant, so we went
over there and climbed to a point somewhat higher than the pueblo.
I then saw that the ledge or groove in the rock, in which the pueblo
was built, ran along the cliff for a quarter of a mile, some distance
beyond where we found the stone steps; and thought I saw indications
of steps, leading down from it a little way toward the detached slab.
Possibly, I thought, this slab may have been fast above when the village had inhabitants, and furnished them a winding stairway. I saw,
also, that the houses were of a most admirable construction, built of
flat stones laid in mortar, and neatly whitewashed inside; and that the
joists were of massive timber, round, nearly a foot thick, and dressed
with some care. At the distance of seven or eight hundred feet there
was much uncertainty, but I fancied I also saw fragments of iron and
leather on the floor of one house-the only one into which the sunshine fell directly. From the situation of the cliffs, I judge that about
10 o'clock in the morning the sun would be shining directly in the
front doors.
A remarkable echo is observable here. A sentence of ten words




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259


shouted from the south side, is returned clearly and distinctly. Not
far below we found the ruins of another house, not more than forty
feet high, with shelving rock below. The Navajo found steps to lead
half way up. He then walked along a flat offset five or six feet bellow the house, and held his hands against my feet while I climbed a
shelving rock and reached it. It was in ruins, and most of the material lay in a heap in the caflon below. Only the fire-place and
chimney, built against the cliff, remained whole; they were of the
common Pueblo pattern, and showed dabs of whitewash. I sustained
one serious disappointment. Through some blunder of my guide or
the interpreter who instructed him at Defiance, I missed the greatest
wonder. We ought to have turned up the Canon de Chelley from
where we entered it, and. a mile or two would have brought us to the
largest pueblo, one capable of containing a thousand people, situated
on a cliff fifteen hundred feet high and utterly inaccessible.
And who once inhabited these towns? Well, I am of opinion
the people were substantially of the same race as the present Pueblos.
The houses are an exact reproduction of those at Pueblo de Laguna,
including stone, mortar, towers, acquarra windows, and whitewashed
interior. From the lower valleys they retreated to these cliffs where
their mounted enemies could not pursue them. But the streams on
which they depended are dried up, and the little nooks they once cultivated are fast being buried by the drifting sand. The disintegrating
cliffs are spreading barrenness overall the valleys; the cafnon bed is
like a vast river of sand. As we journey down it a feeble stream
sometimes shows itself for a few rods, and is then lost; again our
animals' hoofs turn up moist sand. Occasionally bright meadows of
green grass appear; and again the sand river seems to divide and flow
around a fertile island a little higher than the main land, and containing a few acres of dense wheat-grass, as high as a man's head,
Again we find the cliffs sinking from a perpendicular to a slope of
sixty degrees or so, and bordered by considerable foot-hills; and there
we see shrubby hemlock, bunch-grass, a few herds and Navajo hogans. Above are their goats clambering up what appears the bare,
yellow face of stone; but riding near we observe hundreds of little
gullies worn in the rock, each with a slight stain of soil and a few
bunches of yellow grass. Looking for camp early, we came upon a
green island of some ten acres, containing three Navajo huts; my
guide shouted to thefirst shepherd girl he saw,.who pointed to a peak
half a mile away, exclaiming, " Klohh, tohh!" We rode thither, and
to my surprise, found that the cliffs gave back and inclosed a level




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plat of a few acres, a sort of mountain cove, sodded with luxuriant
grass, and containing another Navajo settlement. Their goats were
kind enough to prefer the high gulches, leaving the green grass of
the plat in abundance for our stock. In the center wvas a dug spring,
but no running water. The community had abundance of goats'
milk and white roots-nothing else.
While the Navajo prepared our supper, I went to the first hogan,
finding an old man quite sick, who asked-the only Spanish he knewif I had any azucar y cafe, adding that he had not tasted food for a
week. His daughter went back to camp with me, after the sugar and
coffee, and all the other women in the settlement having arrived, they
waited to see us eat. Opening a tin box, to their great astonishment
I took out a sardine and jokingly held it out for them to see, then ate
it, when they turned away with such expressions of horror and disgust that I was heartily ashamed of myself. Their feelings were
probably about the same as ours would be on seeing a Fejee chewing
on the corpse of his grandmother. Fish and turkeys either will be or
have been human beings, in their theology; they never touch the
former, and the latter only to escape absolute starvation. I had been
warned that I would find my Navajo prone to disregard cleanliness; I
found him rather neat and careful. But imagine my astonishment
when I saw that all his native politeness could not entirely conceal
his disgust at eating with me. The sardines had done for my reputation among the Navajoes.
Supper over, I climbed as far as possible up one of the side gulches,
lighted my pipe, and sat down to watch the line of sunshine and shadow
creep slowly up the sixteen hundred feet of the opposite cliff, while the
red sun sank behind the mountains. Sunlight gave place to dusk, and
the day's heat to a sharp air which made me draw my blanket close
around my shoulders; then came on the brilliant night of 'this climate,
in which every silvery star seems to stand out from a firmament of
polished steel. But in a few minutes the moon rose above the eastward peaks, and poured a flood of glory on the barren rocks, transforming the red peaks to shining mountains of gold; and the sand-flat
to a flowing, glittering stream of gems.  The air held no trace of
moisture.  I was weary, but the sight was too glorious to admit of
sleep. I sat and gazed; tried to reason on the geology of these hills,
but soon nature compelled me from the domain of science to that of
imagination. It was a time to admire and enjoy, not to philosophize; for, though we go back in scientific fancy from age to age,
from cosmic process to cosmic process, we come at last to a mighty




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261


void which reason can not pass, and can only think: " I  THE BEGINNING, GOD —"
There, in childhood, we began; there, after ages of scientific conjecture, must we rest. Reason exhausted leans on faith, and learning's
last endeavor ends where revelation began.
We were off next day at the first glimmer of dawn, hoping to reach
grass and water early in the afternoon, and knowing that at the best
we had a long day's ride before us. It is delightful for travel till
about 10 o'clock; then the morning breeze dies away, and, as the
afternoon breeze does not rise till about three, the intervening heat
is terrible. We are already nearly two thousand feet below Defiance,
and going a little lower every day, with corresponding change in the
climate. The grand scenery continues to the very mouth of the cafion,
which we reached in two hours, then breaks down into a brief succession of foot-hills and ridges of loose sand, and brings us to an open
plain. Here were two or three sections of land under some sort of
cultivation by the Navajoes, but it was the most pitiable prospect for a
crop I ever saw. The feeble, yellow blades of corn, three or four
inches in height, had struggled along through drought and cold till
the heavy frost of June 17th, and now most of them lay flat on the
ground.   My guide waved his hand over the field, exclaiming, mournfully, " Mzierto, muerto" (dead); " no chinneahgo Navajoes."  A few of
the more resolute were out replanting, which they did with a sharpened
stick, or rather paddle. They dig a hole some ten inches through the
dry surface sand to the moist layer underneath, in the edge of which
they deposit the grain. They plant wheat the same way, in little hills
a foot or so apart, and weed it carefully till it is grown enough to cultivate. If there is water, they irrigate; otherwise, it has to take its
chances; and the guide informed me that the acecquia we saw issuing
from the cation had long been dry. Twenty bushels of corn and ten
of wheat are extra crops. If any citizen of rural Ohio, who can deliberately sit down three times a.day and recklessly eat all his appetite craves, is dissatisfied, he ought to travel awhile in this country.
Crossing the dry arroyo we rose on the western side to a vast floodplain, ten miles wide, and running as far as I could see from north to
south. The surface showed that it had been flooded some time within
the last few years; there was not a trace of alkali or other noxious
mineral, and the soil was of great natural fertility.  But there was
not a spear of vegetation on it, simply for lack of moisture. Here are
at least a hundred square miles, formed of detritus and vegetable mold,
now utterly worthless for want of water. If artesian wells are possible,


"I




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WESTERN WILDS.


the whole tract may be of great value. We rose thence by a succession
of white sand hills to a horrible desert, which extended some twenty
miles. Our horses suffered from both heat and thirst, and the water
in our canteens was soon simmering warm. As we neared a low
range of gray and chalky-looking hills, the sage-brush appeared a
little more thrifty, and sometimes showed a faint green tinge, indicating there was water somewhere in the vicinity.
A faint track, as if made by sheep or goats, crossed our trail,
whereat the guide whirled his horse toward the ridge, ran his eye
along the peaks, and selecting one which to my eye in no way differed from the rest, exclaimed, " To! " and we started for it. At the
mouth of the gorge was a sickly little cottonwood in a small depression, at which the guide remarked: " Toh pasar muchos a'los" (water
many years ago), and we struck up the nearest gulch. The rock
every-where was crumbling away; it was like riding up a mountain
of chalk. At the foot of, and partly underneath a large cliff, we found
two holes, scooped out by Indian hatchets, and containing a gallon or
so of water to each, the one almost cool and the other blood warm.
After treating ourselves to a quart or so each, my horse drank the cool
one and the burro the other, and we struck into the desert again. On
the western side, my guide had told me, we should see the last Navajoes; but we soon met most of the colony driving before them their
little herds, and to the guide's question they replied that the grass
there was gone, the water dried up to one spring, and that was hohkawvah ki wano (decidedly not good). Though I did not quite understand this, I saw, by its effect on the guide, that it was bad news for
us, who had already ridden forty miles.
There was but one family left, and the girl showed us a specimen
kettle of the water. It was horrible stuff, but we must have some of
it, and climbing an hour we reached the pool. All around it the sandstone had been trodden to powder,and was drifting into the water,
which was green, slimy, full of vile pollywogs, and looked and smelt
as if ten thousand goats had waded through it. The horse and burro
drank with many sniffs and brute protests, and John and I downed a
pint or so each; but it was a signal triumph of catholic stomachs over
protesting noses. We had no more than reached the plain till both
of us were sick, and in an hour I dismounted, unable to ride further.
John ran about in great distress, gathered some dry yellow flowers,
and burnt them under my nose, producing a violent sneezing and
retching.  Placing his hand on my stomach, he indicated, by most
expressive signs, that "it must come up." Having lighted my pipe




WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.


263


and placed it in my mouth, he moistened some tobacco and placed it
under my arms and on the pit of my stomach. The convulsion was
terrible, but the vile water did come up.
Two hours more and my thirst, aggravated by the previous sickness,
became intolerable. John decided that we must climb the mountain
to our right, to another "pocket" which contained good water. We
toiled upward for a thousand feet, to a point where a soft limestone
reef broke across the sand-mountain. Here he pointed out a black
pass between two rocks, and leaving our horses we entered it to find a
beautiful pool of cold, clear water, nearly a rod square and completely
covered by overhanging rocks. Here we drank, filled the canteens,
and rested until the moon was high enough to light us back to the
plain.  My horse either smelt the water or heard its splash, and
uttered a low pleading whinny that went to my heart.  It was impossible to get him under the rocky arch into the cave, and I had no
vessel but a tin-cup.  I tried that, but could not even moisten his
tongue; I wet my handkerchief and tried to "swab" his mouth; he
chewed it to rags and bit my finger in the operation. About to give
up in despair, I thought of my wool hat, and filled that for him. It
fitted his mouth admirably, and by eleven trips with it he was satisfied. Half a dozen hatfuls sufficed for the burro, and we worked our
way down hill again. But this time my Navajo's sense of locality
failed him, and on the steepest part he took the wrong chute, pulling
up his burro just in time to avoid his plunging head first into a ravine,
but not in time to save himself, as the saddle girth gave way just at
the wrong moment. As he went head first into a pile of bowlders and
sand, I looked on in horror, fully satisfied that I was left alone in this
terrible place; but he sprang up instantly, and with a silly smile, and
" Vah, vah, Melicano, malo, malo!" remounted and rode on, only rubbing his crown occasionally.
Getting back to the plain, we continued our former course southwest along the foot of the mesa. My eyelids began to droop with
weariness, and for fear I should drop off my horse in sleep, I loosed
my feet, and raising the stirrup leathers, wrapped them about each
arm. The positiop was not favorable to sleep, nor culd I keep entirely awake; and soon I suffered from that queer symptom of dreaming with the eyes wide open, and fixed upon the very object of my
dream. The bright moonlight fell upon the projecting peaks of the
ridge to our right, and I endeavored to keep awake by contemplating
their beauty; but as I gazed I saw suddenly a score of bright, clear
streams dashing down as many gulches, and a broad savanna on the




264


WESTERN WILDS.


plain below, rich and green with inviting grass. I shouted to the
guide: "Kloh! Toh!"' (grass, water), and jerking up my horse,
pitched forward on his neck and awoke. I braced myself more firmly
to keep awake, and in a few moments, looking on a rock a little ahead,
I saw a hideous painted Indian bound out from behind it and take
position in the sage-brush near the trail. I yelled to the guide and
grabbed my gun, and just as the hammer was clicking under my hand,
Indian and rock disappeared, and the answering shout of the guide
brought me to my waking senses. I knew there was not a hostile
Indian in fifty miles, so, for fear I would shoot my own horse, I gave
the gun to the Navajo, and again resolved to keep awake. He still
pointed ahead for grass, but indicated that it was now "pokeeto" (a
little way).  While gazing on a sand ridge we were crossing, I
seemed to see it covered with grass and flowers, and shouting that this
was the place, reined up my horse suddenly, and again butted him in
the back of the head, at the imminent risk of giving us both the pollevil.
At last, near midnight, we reached the little oasis I had anticipated
in so many fitful dreams. There was abundant bunch-grass but no
water, and we made a "dry camp." While the Navajo hoppled the
horses, I wrapped my blankets about me, laid my head upon my.saddle, and in two minutes was sound asleep. It seemed that I had
scarcely closedl my eyes when I was awakened by a A Hah-koh, Melicano!' and, starting up, saw my Navajo holding the animals ready
to mount, and pointing to the east, already rosy with the coming dawn.
Moving his hand thence towards a point half way to the zenith,
he remarked: "KI oh, toh!  No calor," Navajo, Spanish and signlanguage, meaning in full: "By starting now we shall reach grass and
water the middle of the forenoon, and before the heat of the day."
Nevertheless, I decided that a cup of coffee would help things, as
there was.sage-brush enough for a fire, and a pint of water still in the
canteena.
After coffee and bread, we found the morning ride delightful, and
through a better country which produced considerable grass.  The
valley slowly narrowed to a mere pass; beyond the rugged jaws of
this red canion there opened an extensive plain, and in its center rose
an oval mesa, which the guide designated as Moqui. We made our
midday halt at the point of the mountain; but when the guide indicated grass and water up and over a perfectly bare white sand-hill, I
shook my head. He only smiled, and led the way.  With frequent
rests to our horses, we had toiled up and over the rising sand-hills for




WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.


265


something like a mile, when a sudden descent brought us into a circular hollow, containing half a dozen shrubs and nearly an acre of
densely matted grass. At the foot of the cliff was a slight moisture,
and pointing to a black rock which appeared nearly five hundred feet
straight above us, the guide intimated there was our spring. Every
thing was stripped from the animals except the lariats, but how we
ever got them up that hill is a mystery to me; but we did, and found
plenty of good water, brought down our supply, and remained in this
camp until 3 P. M. We cooked a fresh supply of bread, ate a big
dinner, and enjoyed a delightful "laze" in the shadow of a big rock.
We here overhauled our kit, brushed up a little, and put on our
best gear for a visit; and, when the afternoon breeze had sprung up,
entered upon the sandy plain, and followed a slight trail towards the
mesa. Occasional depressions were filled with yellow bunch-grass, but
most of the plain was of hard, bare white sand, seeming to literally
bake in the heat of the sun. Approaching the foot of the mesa we
found the sand a little more loose and dark. Here I noticed rows of
stones a foot 67 so apart, and was amazed to find, on examination, we
were in a Moqui field. By every little hill of corn or beans they had
laid a stone, the object being to mark the spot during the long period
between planting and the appearance of the shoot above ground.
From the foot-hills I gazed with astonishment upon the perpendicular walls and projecting cliffs of the mesa, rising a thousand feet
above me. It is little over half a mile long and half as wide, and
rises abruptly from the plain on every side; around it run galleries and foot-paths, winding in and out upon the crevices and projecting shelves of rock; and far above my head, as it seemed almost
in midair, I saw goat-pens upon the very face of the cliff, opening
back into dark cool caves, where the stock is inclosed at night. Here
and there was to be seen a Moqui woman toiling wearily up the rocky
gallery with a water-jug strapped upon her back.
It was a strange sight. I was thrilled at the thought that I was
looking upon the chosen stronghold of the most peculiar race of American Indians: a city about which conjecture and romance had taken
the place of knowledge, a country vaguely described by hunters, but
never by careful writers, and therefore one the very existence of which
is often pronounced fabulous. It is perhaps the strongest natural
fortification in the world. Around the entire mesa there is but one
narrow way that a horse can ascend, and on that, at a score of points,
a squad of boys with nothing but stones could defy the cavalry of the
world. The springs which supply the community are situated around




266                   WESTERN WILDS.
the base of the highest cliffs, where the foot-hills begin, but so far up
that most of them can not be reached by horses from below; and
even most of their little fields are hidden among the foot-hills, and
only to be found from above. From the generaJ level of the plain to
the flat top of the mesa I estimate at a thousand feet. Half of this
rise is by a succession of rolling sand ridges, and then we come to a
perpendicular cliff, only surmountable by these rock-hewn galleries.
The community owns neither horses nor cattle; nothing but goats, and
equally agile burros, can surmount the obstacles of such a situation.
We entered upon the ascent in a hot and narrow pass between two
sand ridges, and soon reached the first spring, below which was a succession of walled fields. Each field was about three rods wide and six
long, and contained some three hundred hills of corn; they were
built up against the sand ridge, a stone wall four or five feet high
forming at once the division for one and support for the dirt in the
next, the fields rising in a succession of terraces. The feeble stream
was exhausted before it -passed the second field, and it is only in the
night that the lower ones can be irrigated. Farther down, where there
is no water, the Moqui digs a hole in the sand eighteen or twenty
inches deep, and plants his corn where a slight moisture has percolated from above. We passed the slope, and were about to enter
on the gallery road, when a Moqui shouted to us from directly overhead, and in obedience to his directions, though at the imminent risk
of our necks, the guide turned down a rocky foot-path to another gallery. A few steps showed us that a vast sand-rock had fallen across
the other road, and a new one had been built.
As we turned the last groove in the gallery, and, almost before we
were aware of it, the houses looking so much like stone, we were
right in the first town, all the men of which seemed to be absent. At
Defiance I was told to ask for Chino, the Capitan of this mesa, before
I talked to any one else; so I shouted to call out some one. A woman
came on top of the nearest house, and seeing me immediately set up
a cry of jokow! jokow! Then from every house women and children,
with occasionally a man or good-sized boy, came running on to the
house-tops and down the ladders to the street, while the cry wvent
ahead from house to house, jokow! jokow! jokow! A population of
several hundred was soon crowding about me, or gazing in astonishment from the house-tops; the women were chattering and exclaiming,
and the children when I rode near a house yelling with fright, and
altogether we were creating a decided sensation. Again I called for
Chino, and a dozen boys jumped into the road and ran along the




WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA.


267


cliff, beckoning me to follow. We passed through the first town, the
whole population following in a tumultuous mass, and in the second
town-a hundred yards on-found and were admitted to the lower
part of. Chino's house. He was not at home, but they let us into an
extension of his dwelling, containing but one story, where we deposited our packs. Twenty boys and women were already on the
house-top, jostling each other to look through the square opening at
us; as many more were crowding into the room, and about four hundred were outside struggling for a good place.
It is not pleasant to be stared at, even by barbarians, and I was
greatly relieved when a tall old fellow, with a merry twinkle in his
eye, arrived, addressed me in pretty good Spanish, and intimated that
he did the talking for Chino when strangers came. His name, which
he had on a card written by some white man, was Misiamtewah; he
had visited the Mormon settlements and Santa Fe, and could speak
Spanish, Moqui, Tegua and a little English and Navajo, besides being
fluent in the sign language. I cultivated his acquaintance at once.
Chino soon arrived, and assured me, per Mislamtewah, that this was
my town, my house, my country as long as I wanted to stay, and
assigned me quarters in a very comfortable room, one they usually
reserve for white visitors. We stored our baggage, sent out our
animals to graze with the common herd, opened our provisions and
took supper with Chino and his son. I was in pleasant quarters again,
and devoted a few days to rest, study of these peculiar people, and
jotting down notes on my trip through the two Territories, for all of
which see next chapter.


/




CHAPTER XVII.


AMONG THE AZTECS.
ARIzONA and the western half of New Mexico-constitute a vast parallelogram, down the center of which, as dividing water-shed, runs
the Sierra Madre range.  From its summit, varying from seven to
ten thousand feet high, the country falls off' each way in a succession
of plateaus to the two great rivers.  The traveler proceeding westward from the Rio Grande, over an almost level mesa, sees rising before him a range of rocky hills from a hundred to a thousand feet
high, and naturally looks for a corresponding descent. on the western
side. Instead, on reaching the sunmiit, he finds again the level, barren mesa spreading away before him, till its sandy and glistening surface fades into the blue horizon.  Across this succession of terraced
plateaus a fewv valleys put out eastward, and in the lowest portions of
these; where some running water is found, are the only cultivable
lands. A series of such valleys, connected by singular natural passes,
furnish a feasible route for the Thirty-fifth Parallel Road.
Still, there is a sort of regularity on the New Mexican side; but
far otherwise west of the summit. There the high plateaus are broken
across by awful chasms; gorges with perpendicular sides go winding
tortuously through the formation; all the streams run in great cations
from two to five thousand feet in depth, with bottoms from one to
four thousand feet above the level of the sea.  Here and there the
barren plateau appears to drop suddenly to a level plain, and rocky
ranges of hills inclose an oval valley, walled in on every side by inaccessible mountains, and with passes out only up or down the beds of
ancient streams, long since dry. It is the oldest country on earth, except perhaps the " back-bone " of Central Africa; natural eonvulsions
have slowly heaved it far above the region of abundant rains or
dews, and the great Colorado, with its affluents, has for ages been
slowly cutting deeper and deeper channels in the sandstone formation,
tapping the sources of the springs at lower points, and steadily sucking the life out of its own basin. On the rocky hills are still some
fine forests; on the slopes the Indians find abundant bunch-grass and
wild sage for their hardy animals; and, at rare intervals, a hidden
(268)




AMONG THE AZTECS.


269


valley is found, low enough to have a growing season without frost,
with water enough for irrigation, its soil the volcanic detritus of neighboring hills, and of wonderful fertility.  Perhaps one-fortieth of the
entire area is fit for agriculture.


ON THE MESA CALABASA.


Three races inhabit this strange region. The white Americans of
both Territories number, perhaps, twenty thousand; the Mexicans at
least a hundred thousand. The latter are the result of miscegenation
between the Spanish conquerors and the aborigines, the blood being




270


WESTERN WILDS.


about half and half; but the aristocracy have more Spanish, the peons
more Indian. The pure Indians of all the South-west are divided
in two general classes-Pueblos and Nomads. The first are all
friendly, including the Zunis, Moquis, Teguas, Oraybes, Papagoes,
Pimos and Coco-Maricopas. Of the Nomads, the Navajoes are now
friendly, the Apaches and Comanches fiercely hostile, and the Utes a
little doubtful, but nominally peaceful.  In the southern sections, the
San Francisco, White and Magollon Mountains and their spurs
break up the country into a thousand hidden valleys, in which the
murderous Apaches hide and graze their stock; the few trails go twisting through narrow cailons, in which, at most unexpected places, the
savages let fly upon the unwary traveler a shower of poisoned arrows;
and dreary intervals of desert separate the scant water-holes on which
the way-worn explorer must depend.
On the map Arizona appears to have abundance of water, but it is
an optical illusion. Nine-tenths of the so-called " rivers" are dry; in
the four hundred miles between Agua Azu and Lee's Ferry, on the
Colorado, I crossed eleven considerable river-beds, and saw running
water in but*one place. The Colorado is barely navigable for part of
the year, and not far up, as Brigham Young found to his cost when he
built the Callville warehouses. The channel is crooked and changeable below the cation, rocky anl full of cataracts in the cafion, shallow
and impassable above it. Practically it is useless above Fort Yuma.
For fifteen hundred miles it will float no boats; there is no timber on
its banks that can be got at or is worth getting, no gold deposits in
its bars, no fish in it worth catching, no quarries along it that can be
utilized, and no land that can be cultivated. It is purely an ornamental stream.
Along the Gila (Heelah) live the semi-civilized Pimos, Maricopas
and Papagoes. They cultivate the earth with some skill, and produce
abundance of wheat, corn, pumpkins and melons.  Like all the Pueblos the men are scrupulously honest-the women virtuous to a most
un-Indian degree.  They are well supplied With horses, cattle, sheep
and goats, are exposed to Apache raids, and freely join with the
whites in fighting the latter.  The Papagoes took a very prominent
part in the notorious Camp Grant massacre. At first these Indians
were delighted at the coming of the whites; n0w  ey are sullen and
uncommunicativc, saying that the agents hav ifi rauded them and
tried to debauch their women. Probably correct.
The nomadic tribes, except the.Navajoes, are dying off at a very
satisfactory rate. The Yavapais have four natural deaths to one




AMONG THE AZTECS.


271


birth. One-tenth of the Mohaves have died annually for some years.
It is rare to see one of this tribe entirely free from the scrofulous
taint. The whole Apache race numbers less than 7,000; 2,000 warriors is the utmost they can raise. Forty years ago they numbered
-4e  -:, x


" CONVERTED ON THE SPOT."
25,000, and could en    collect 4,000 warriors for a grand raid into
Mexico.   But the      incurably wild, and often hunted like wild
beasts.  For the m t   art they attack white men at sight, and many
are the fearful tragedies enacted in these wilds. When an Apache is
killed, the white settlers, in gleeful Sarcasm of Collyer and other "C humanitarians," speak of him as IC converted, or " civilized on the spot."




272


PVESTERN WILDS.


Among the Arizona Indians there are no strong tribal organizations, and no men of much influence. The hostile parties are not
made up from any one clique or small settlement, nor do the members
join at the command of a chief; but some ambitious leader sends
word that he will start on a raid, and invites the braves of the vicinity to join. It is therefore impossible to govern the tribes through
the chiefs in the manner practiced east of the Rocky Mountains.
To all these remarks the Navajoes constitute an encouraging exception.  They are the original Romans of New Mexico.  Spanish
accounts say that at the Conquest a branch of the ancient Mexican
Indians, disdaining to submit, took refuge in the hidden valleys and,
on the inaccessible plateaus of the Sierra Madre; there they joined a
wild tribe of the Athabascan stock, and from the union of the two
sprang the present Navajoes. Kindred, on the Athabascan side, of the
Shoshonees, Comanches, Apaches and Arapahoes, they have all the
bravery and best qualities of the wild tribes, while from the old Aztec
or Toltec blood they inherit a peculiar civilization, fair habits of industry and thrift, and something like a spirit of progress. For two
hundred years they carried on almost perpetual war with the Spaniards; then a sort of peace was patched up and continued till the
Americans got control of the country, and established agencies. Then
war followed, of course.  It lasted seven years, and did not end till
General W. H. Carleton, in 1863-'64, had destroyed all their orchards and corn-fields, killed their sheep and goats, and literally starved
them out.
Barboncito, their great chief, a born diplomat, succeeded in 1868
in making a very advantageous treaty with General Sherman; and
since then the tribe has slowly built up again. Before the war they
numbered 12,000, and it is claimed they owned over a million sheep
and goats, and at least 30,000 horses. Even now there are few adults
in the tribe who do not own one or more horses each. Ganado
Mucho ("Big Herd"), a prominent chief, owns four hundred. In
1870 they began farming under direction of the agent, but so far it
has not been much of an improvement on their own system. In
1871 they planted extensively, and had a young orchard growing
finely, when, on the night of May 31st, a storm of sleet killed every
tree. The seeds furnished by the department were utterly unsuited
to this altitude, and they have returned to their old system. The
country appears to get dryer year by year. It is a pity they could
not be transferred en masse to the Indian Territory.
They work in iron, wool and leather; but to no great extent, ex



AMONG THE AZTECS.


273


cept in the secomd. Of thiL they make blankets, which are the
wonder of all who see them. The loom is rude and primitive, consisting only of beams to which two sticks are lashed; on these the
warp, or " chain," is stretched very tight, the two sets of strands
crossing in the middle. This, with two loose sticks, dividing the
" chain,^ and a curved board, looking like a barrel stave with the
edges rounded, constitute the entire loom. The squaw sits before this


NAVAJO LOOM.


with her balls of yarn for "filling" conveniently arranged, works
them through the strands, and beats them firmly together with the
loose board, running it in between the strands with singular dexterity.
The woolen yarn for " filling" is made from their own sheep, generally, and is of three colors-black, white and red, from native coloring. Running these together by turns, with nimble fingers, the
squaw brings out on the blanket squares, diamonds, circles and fanciful curves, and flowers of three colors, with a skill which is simply
amazing. Two months are required to complete an ordinary blanket,
five feet wide and eight long, which sells at from fifteen to fifty dollars, according to the style of materials. At the Fort, officers who
18




274


WESTERN WILDS.


wish an unusually fine article, furnish both " chain" and "filling,"
but those entirely of Navajo make are very fine. One will outlast
a life-time; and though rolled in the mud, or daubed with grease for
months or years, till every vestige of color seems gone, when washed
with the soap-weed (mole cactus) the bright native colors come out as
beautiful as ever.
They also manufacture, with beads and silk threads obtained
from the traders, very beautiful neck-ties, ribbons, garters, cuffs
and other ornaments.   More interesting to me than any of their
handicraft, is the unwearying patience they display in all their works
and their zeal and quickness to learn in.every thing which may improve their condition.  Officers and agents universally tell me that
Navajoes work alongside of any employ6s they can get, and do full
work. They dig ditches and make embankments with great skill,
handling the spade as well as any Irishman. Surely such a people
are capable of civilization.
Mrs. Charity Menaul, teacher at Defiance, reported considerable
progress among the iNavajoes under her charge. I found the older
people curious to learn about our customs, and very communicative
as to their own, though like all barbarians a little reticent as to their
theology. Their religion, or superstition, is vague; there is a difference on minor points between the bands, though some ideas are common. Chinday, the devil, is a more important personage in their
system than Whylohay, the god; as, like the Mormons and many
other white schismatics, they charge all they don't like in other people
to the direct personal agency of the devil. About the only use, in
fact, of their god, is to lay plans to outwit the devil. Their moral
code is extremely vague: whatever is good for the tribe is in general
right; whatever is not pro bono publico is wrong. Cowards after
death will become coyotes, while braves will continue men in a better
country. Women will change to fish for awhile, and afterwards to
something else. -But they don't trouble themselves much about the
next world. If they had plenty in this, they would consider themselves in luck.
On minor points there are as many sects as in Boston. The general
belief is this: there is one Great Spirit; under him each people has
its own god. The god of the Melicanoes is very good to them; they
have corn and horses, blankets and 'much chinneahgo. But it is useless for Navajoes to pray to him. Each cares for his own. The coyote will not take up the children of the rattlesnake; the eagle will
not give his meat to the young hawks. It is light, it is nature.




AMONG THE AZTECS.


275


Whylohay (a female, by the way) made the Navajoes in the San Juan
Valley; they were rich, and had abundance of all things. But one
night Chinday dammed the San Juan, and drowned them all. Besides
the fish, only two creatures escaped; the snake swam ashore and the
turkey flew up to a peak in Colorado. The goddess made the turkey
into another man, and made a woman from a fish, and from these two
are descended all the present Navajoes. However, this may be only
an allegorical statement of the general masculine belief that the sex
divine are inclined to be slippery and hard to catch.
Women after death change to fish for awhile; after that their destiny seems unsettled. Because of this, Navajoes eat neither fish nor
turkeys. The snake is the only animal that knows any thing about
what took place in the first creation. Hence, Navajoes seldom or
never kill one. From other fish Whylohay recreated the animal
kingdom. The turkey was made from a fish in a lake covered with
foam, which lodged on his tail as he swam ashore; hence, the white
feathers in the turkey's tail. White men after death go up into the
air; Navajoes go down through Bat Canfion and into the earth.
Thence they come out a long way west, on the edge of a great water.
The shore is guarded by terrible evil spirits in the form of men, but
with great ears reaching from above their heads to the ground. When
asleep, they lie on one ear and cover with the other. Whether they
ever "(walk off on their ear," the old men could not inform me.
Only half of them sleep at a time, and the Navajo has to fight his
way through them. If he is brave, and has treated his women well,
he gets through; then the goddess takes him across the water. There,
like the white man, they stop; from that country no one has ever
come back, to say what is there, or tell us about the climate.
Their women are often quite handsome; but like barbarian
races generally, they sell their daughters in marriage. Common to
average can be had for property to the value of $25; prime to fine
for $50; while young and extra go at $60, the standard price of the
Navajo speckled pony. While in Cafion de Chelley, I was offered a
beautiful Miss of fifteen for $60, or the horse I was riding. Perhaps
I should have closed with the offer-it is so much cheaper than one
can get a wife in the States. Two months vigorous courting will cost
more than that-particularly in the ice-cream season.
The men do the hardest work, in the fields and on the chase; to
the women is left the weaving, household work, tending the herds
and grinding.  The last is done with the mitata-consisting of two
flat stones, the lower stationary, the upper rubbed upon it with the




4


276                   WESTERN WILDS.
hand, the result being a pasty flour. Of this and water they make
a mixture no thicker than starch, which they cook.on hot stones.
The fire is built in a small hole, on which is placed the flat stone, no
more than an inch thick; when sufficiently hot, the squaw thrusts her
hand into the starchy solution, and rapidly draws a handful, which
she spreads upon the stone. In a half-minute it is cooked in the
form of a brown wafer, no thicker than card board. Another and
another follows till they have a layer some inches thick, which is
rolled up conveniently for carrying.
They are the only wild tribe I know who do not scalp dead enemies. They never had that practice. In fact, they never touch a
dead body, even of their own people. Each hogan is so constructed
that the weight rests mostly on two main beams. When one dies in
a hogan, they loosen these two outside, and let it drop upon Ohim. If
one dies on the plain, they pile enough stones upon him to keep off
the coyotes, but never touch the body. This observance is a serious
drawback in one respect: it prevents them from building permanent
dwellings. It is said to be a part of their religion, but I apprehend
it originated during some plague, when contagion resulted from touching the dead.
One surprising fact to me was that an Indian would sunburn by
exposure as readily as a white man. But many of our current notions
about the Indian are erroneous. For instance, it is a great mistake
to suppose they can travel so long without eating. They know the
country, and what roots are nourishing or poisonous. In many places
over this section between the two Coloradoes grows a species of milky
weed, with tough, stringy root, in taste resembling the "sweet hickory " the boys use to pull and chew, along the Wabash. The Navajoes cook this in boiled milk, or with bacon when at home, and on
journeys without supplies take it raw. They get poor as snakes on
such food; but it does keep soul and body together for awhile, and
prevent the deadly faintness resulting from complete fasting. But
they endure thirst much better than we, and for obvious reasons.
Their food contains no salt, their bread no chemicals; they rarely get
intoxicating liquors, and use Very little tobacco. With unsalted bread,
a scant indulgence in bacon, and coffee nightand morning, I soon
found I could go half a day without water with no inconvenience
whatever. I also tried the practice of riding bareheaded, and found
that an easy accomplishment. In short, though it takes forty years
to civilize an Indian, I am positive a well-disposed white man could
go wild in six months.




AMONG THE AZTECS.


277


The origin of the venereal poison is a subject much discussed by the
Indians. Most of them assert that they had none of it till the Melicanoes came, but the old men admitted that cases were introduced,
many years ago, from Mexico. The Coyotero, White Mountain and
Mogollon Apaches have never had a case of it. If one of their
women offend with a white man, her nose and ears are cut off, and she
is made a slave. The Moquis appeared quite ignorant of the existence of such a disease. The Tabequache Utes have a woman publicly
whipped for infidelity with whites. If she be found diseased, she is
forthwith lanced and her body burned. This savage quarantine has
effectually preserved the tribe, and I supposed at first it was for that
purpose; but the Navajo old men asserted that it was rather as an act
of mercy to the woman. The Mohaves are perishing rapidly from this
scourge. The Navajoes claim that there is now very little of it among
them, and that they treat it successfully. To sum up on my Navajo
friends: they are the only Indians in whom I could ever take much
interest, and I am confident they can be civilized, and that the "humanitarian policy" will be a success as applied to them.
I stop four days with the Moquis; I should need six months to
learn all that is interesting in their mode of life, theology and social
organization. They are aboriginal Quakers; live at peace with all
men, and have a horror of shedding blood. As a natural consequence
they have retreated from the open country, and now occupy this
rocky mole, safe from the hostility of mounted Indians. Who are
they?  Well, this is one of those things no fellow can find out. The
conundrum must be referred to that large class relative to the MoundBuilders and other prehistoric races of America; for it is self evident
that the semi-civilized Indians of the South-west are but the feeble
remnants of a long series of races.
The three towns on this mesa contain about a thousand inhabitants;
and are known as Moqui, Tegua, and Moquina. (Mokee, Tawah, and
Mokeena.) A little way westward are four other towns of the same
race: Hualpec, Shepalawa,\ Oraybe, and Beowawa.  (Wallpake, Shepalawa, Orybay, and Baowahwa.) The total population is about three
thousand. Their houses are of good architectural design, built of flat
stones laid in white cement, plastered neatly inside, and whitewashed
with a material which gives a hard, smooth polish. The lower story
is not as high as a man; but that they occupy only in winter. On
this the second story rises ten or twelve feet, seldom more than half
as wide as the lower, leaving a broad margin on which they usually
sleep. The first story has, no doors and very small windows; they




278


WESTERN WILDS.


ascend to the second by a rude ladder or stone stairway at the corner.
The better class have carpets of sheep-skin, and all have them to sit
on; the climate is too dry for mold, and I found the residences very
agreeable.
The people are exceedingly kind and communicative. When the
novelty of my appearance had worn away a little, and I could walk
about town without a wondering crowd after me, I rarely turned
toward a house without receiving the welcome wave of the hand to
the lips and breast, with the words, "Ho, MIelicano, messay vo;" or
sometimes, as many know a few words of Spanish,, "Entre: Pasar
adelante." Then a boy or girl would run down the stone staircase,
and extend a hand to steady me in ascending. They took mne into
every room in their houses, and seemed to take a pride in exhibiting
their best specimens of pottery, wicker-jugs, and other property. Of
their children they were particularly demonstrative; and, indeed, they
looked well enough. I did not, in all the towns, see a single birthmark, blotch, or deformity, except albinism. Children of both sexes
go entirely naked till about the age of ten years. I noted one curious
fact: the little ones seemed almost as white as American children,
till the age of six months or a year; then they began to turn darker,
and at ten or twelve had attained to a rich mahogany color. They
play for hours along these cliffs, chasing each other from rock to rock
at that dizzy height, and yet the parents seemed surprised when I
asked if accidents did not happen.
Their mode of living is very simple, and I happened upon a time
of unusual scarcity. The general drought of the past three years had
cut off their crops. As often as Chino, the Capitan of this mesa,
visited me, I had presented him a tin of warm, sweetened coffee, of
which they are very fond, and which wvas the only thing I could
spare; and had partaken of parched corn with him the evening of my
arrival, when I received a special invitation to dine with him " the
day before I left." (People with weak Stomachs may skip the next
paragraph.)
They breakfast early, and dine between 11 and 12. Besides Misiamtewah, a sort of official interpreter, there is another Moqui, who
speaks Spanish tolerably well, having been a year in Tucson and Prescott; and both were at dinner with us. We sat upon sheep-skins on
the floor, in a circle around the earthen bowls, in which the food was
placed. The staple was a thick corn mush, which to me was rather
tasteless for the want of salt. The regular bread of the Moquis is a
decided curiosity. The wheat is ground with mitats, as by the Nava

*




AMONG THE AZTECS.


279


joes, but much finer, six or seven women grinding together, reducing
the flour to the merest dust. It is then mixed as thin as milk; the
woman cooking dashes a handful on the hot stone, where it cooks almost instantly, and comes off no thicker than paper, and of a bright
blue color. The flakes are about two feet -long, and as they are
stacked two or three feet deep on the platter, look remarkably like a
pile of blue silk. They raise white, blue, and red corn; and by various mixtures produce bread of seven different colors. They are not
as clean in their cooking as the Navajoes, and it is hinted that they
sometimes mix their meal with chamber-lye for these festive occasions; but I did not know that till I talked with Mormons who had
visited them.
The piece de resistance was the hinder half of a very fat young dog,
well cooked, that animal being the favorite food of the Moquis. It is
subject to greater extremes than beef; the meat of an old, lean dog is
very tough, and that of a fat, young puppy, very tender. I took from
my own store a box of sardines, and Misiamtewah was prevailed upon
to eat one; but Chino and the rest rejected them with horror.
There's gastronomic prejudice for you! This man is sweet on dog,
and rejects a sardine with abhorrence. My Eastern friends take sardines with avidity, buf their gorge rises at the thought of dog, while
my catholic stomach takes dog and sardine with equal impartiality.
Parched corn completed the bill of fare, with beverage of goat's milk.
Both the Moquis and Navajoes never use it until heated almost to the
boiling point; but after one cup of this, I requested and was served
with mine cold. The stove, ingeniously constructed of flat stones, is
either on the ground just beside the door, or on the roof of the first
story, by the door of the second.
With my Navajo guide and Chino's son, we formed a very pleasant
party of six, and had quite a social time. The second interpreter
informed me that he went to Prescott with Melicanoes and Meshicanoes, and that they named him-it was probably in sportJesus Papa (Hay-soos Pahpah.)  Ha was much more communicative
than Misiamtewah, and had a very fair idea of the Americans. To
these simple people I represented in person all the dignity of that
great nation, of whom  such wonderful reports had reached them.
And here I must own to a little deceit. They were at first very inquisitive as to my business, and could not imagine why a white man
should be making such a long trip with only Indians for companions.
Savage people can rarely understand that intelligent curiosity which
is the product of civilization, and suspect some ulterior purpose when




280


WESTERN WILDS.


one has nothing to trade, and is not a prospector for mines. So I told
them I was collecting information about the friendly Indians for the
use of government, which may be passed as in a sense true.
The Moquis have a close struggle for existence. The sand surrounding the mesa presents the poorest show for farming I ever saw,
yet every-where among these sand-hills are their little walled fields,
three or four rods square, and from the measure Papa showed me, I
estimated that his field had produced what would amount to twelve or
fifteen bushels of corn, and half as much wheat, to the acre. The
water from neither of the springs runs more than ten rods before
sinking in the sand; but in some places they have constructed little
troughs of rock or wood which carry a stream perhaps as big as one's
finger to the field, and help the case a little. With a sharp stick they
dig a hole about eighteen inches deep through the top sand, which
brings them to a moister stratum, in which they lodge the grain.
Around the hill they then place a few stones, and after dressing in
clean clothes, sit in solemn silence for hours by the fields-supposed
to be praying for rain. If no rain comes, which is generally the case,
they carry water in their wicker-jugs from the spring, and pour a pint
or so on each hill. If the season is favorable, the corn grows about
two feet high, and yields ten to fifteen bushelt per acre; if unfavorable, they get nothing, and live upon goat's milk and white roots, with
a rare dessert of wild fruit, mescal, or game.
I said " supposed to be praying," as I could learn of no religious belief among them, though their Mormon visitors credit them with being very pious. I explained at great length our ideas of God and
nature, and asked Papa as to theirs, with this result:
Papa-Nothing! (Nada.) The grandfathers said nothing of Dioswhat you say Got-God (making several attempts at the word.)
Myself-But, say to me, who made this mesa, these mountains, all
that you see here?,
P.-Nothing! It is here.
M.-Was it always here?
P.-(With a short laugh)-Yes, certainly, always here. What
would make it be away from here?
M.-But where do the dead Moquis go? Where is the child I saw
put in the sand yesterday? Where does it go?
P.-Not at all. Nowhere; you saw it put in the sand. How can
it go anywhere?
M.-Did you ever hear of Montezuma?
P.-No; Monte-Montzoo-(attempting the word)-Melicano man?




t


AMONG THE AZTECS.                      281
M.-No; one of your people, we think. What are these dances for
that you have sometimes?
P.-The grandfathers always had them.
So ended my attempts at Moqui theology. Probably they were too
suspicious of a stranger to let me know any thing about it, for an
Indian considers his religion his even more exclusively than his horse
or his wife. But they have one curious custom which seems to have
a religious significance. Every morning, at the first break of day, a
young man runs the whole length of the mesa with several cow-bells
tied to his belt; the entire population rise at once, and while the rest
proceed to milk their goats, the bell-man and a few others descend to
the plain and go a mile or so towards the east. An army officer, who
spent some time with them, says they expect a Deliverer to come from
that direction, and send an embassy to meet him. Thus the Moquis,
like all other races, look for One to usher in the time
" When useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a plowshare end;
When wars shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend."
Their traditions say (or in their own phrase "the grandfathers
said") that the ruins on the adjacent mesa were once the homes of a
powerful race of Moquis, and then an immense spring watered all the
plain; but an earthquake threw down the pueblo, split the rock, and
dried up the spring, and the remnant of that people went far to the
South. Telashnimki and Tuba, two Oraybes, husband and wife, once
accompanied Jacob Hamlin to Salt Lake City, and were delighted with
all they saw. Since their return, a portion of the Oraybes have seceded from the main body, and established a new settlement, to which
they invite white men, and propose more friendly relations. The
Moquis pointed out Oraybe in the distance; but did not think it safe
for me to visit it, as the Apaches are often there. The Mormons are
establishing friendly relations with all the tribes of north-western Arizona, and will, it is to be hoped, succeed in peace in their vicinity.
One question frequently asked me was, " Are the Mormoneys Americans?" A plain affirmative was \near enough to the truth for the
views of the Indians; but, in point of fact, the question is open to
argument.
The dress of a Moqui man consists of very loose jacket and drawers, made of calico obtained from traders. The first is made close at
the neck, and flows loosely to the hips; the second reaches from the




282


WESTERN WILDS.


waist to a little below the knees. Heavy sandals protect the feet.
But this dress is only conventional, and they often appear entirely
naked, except the girdle and breech-clout. The women wear a heavy
woolen dress, of their own manufacture, consisting of a single skirt
and sort of half-waist, which leaves one arm and breast bare. Polygamy prevails to a slight extent. Chino and Misiamtewah each have
two wives, but from what little they said on the subject, I conclude
they consider it a burden rather than a privilege. The women are
rather homely, short and stumpy-I think from carrying loads upon
their heads. None of them will compare with the graceful and shapely
Navajo girls; nor are they prolific. The town at the south end of the
mesa is slowly falling to ruins; not half the houses are inhabited, and
through the other towns there are many abandoned dwellings, now
used for stables and sheep-pens, or for storing hay. The kindly law
of nature will not permit increase in a country which can only furnish
a bare living.  Moqui means "Dead Man," and Moquina may be
translated " Little Dead Town."  This is the half-abandoned town on
the south end of the mesa; and I was informed by Jacob Hamlin that
some five years before my visit most of the inhabitants there died of
small-pox.
The Tegua town, the one we first enter on coming up the cliff,
has a language quite distinct from'the ordinary Moqui. Those who
have examined say the Tegua is the same as that spoken by the Pueblos near the city of Mexico. If true, this is a most important fact,
and to my mind goes far to supply the missing link in Baron Humboldt's history of the Aztecs. Governor Amy, of Santa Fe, collected
many facts on this subject, but whether they have been published I
know not. Among these people are many albinoes, with sickly
white skin, red hair and pinky eyes. Many romantic stories have
been told as to the origin of these white Indians, the most sensational
being that they are descendants of some Scotchmen, carried away by the.
Spaniards in their war against Queen Elizabeth; that they were sent
to work in the mines of Mexico, escaped in a body and joined the
Indians.
The un-romantic truth is, they are Indians as much as the others.
Their whiteness is simply a disease. If the term be medically correct, I would call it a species of American leprosy. We need not go
far to find the causes: a people living in this dry climate, on hard,
dry food, in the midst of burning sands, drought, and misery, and
shut up in these little isolated communities, where the same families
hlave intermarried in all probability for a dozen generations. The




AMONG THE AZTECS.


283


only wonder is that they are not totally extinct, or ring-streaked,
speckled, and grizzled. In the "good old time" when the Pueblos
were ten times as numerous, intermarriages took place between the
various towns, their language was nearly the same, and they were
prolific and progressive. Now they constitute but little islands, as it
were, in an ocean of Utes, Navajoes, and Apaches; the separated
towns have gradually grown apart, and become distinct nations; they
have no central priesthood or ecclesiastical connection; their religion
and learning steadily decay, and even the tradition of a common origin is fast becoming obscure.
Perhaps a theory as to the origin of the Pueblos may be constructed
by a system of comparative ethnology and archaeology. Beginning in
the Ohio Valley, there is a regular line of ancient works down to the
central section of the Andes. The Scioto and Licking valleys are
thickly dotted with the works of some race to whom we have given
the.vague title of Mound-Builders. There is the great circle at Newark, which now incloses the fair-grounds; the square and circular
fortification near Chillicothe; the Great Serpent in Adams County,
1,000 feet long; the funereal mound, fort, and intrenched way at
Marietta, and hundreds of others in adjacent districts. There is the
Pyramid at Seltzertown, Mississippi, six hundred feet long and forty
feet high; and two'thousand other mounds and fortifications described
by Squier and Davis in their work, an authentic document published
by the Smithsonian Institution.
But as we go south-west the ruins are larger and nearer their original condition. - Had our predecessors built of stone instead of wood,
we should doubtless have found such in Ohio. There are the great
Casas Grandes on the Gila; the remains of the original or Aztec City
of Mexico; the immense pyramids at Xochicalco and Cholula; the
City of Tulha, ancient capital of the Toltecs, and a regular line of
ancient cities runs down through Central Mexico and into Guatemala,
from which, and the inscriptions on them, we learn much of the common life of the Aztecs and their predecessors. Every-where there are
tumuli, acecquias, and aguadas, or artificial ponds. Yucatan'is dotted
with the ruins of cities, temples, and palaces. The great forests covering a large part of Guatemala and adjacent States, an.area the size
of Ohio, contains the key to America's ancient history. There is conclusive evidence that it once contained from five to ten million inhabitants. The facts are to be found in the works of Del Rio, who
explored part of it in the last century; of Captain Dupaix, who penetrated far enough to get exact measurements of the largest towns; of




284


WES TERN WILDS.


Stephens and Catherwood, and of Brasseur dd Bourbourg, last and
most thorough of explorers. The most important places mentioned
are as follows:
Palenque, in the Mexican State of Chiapas, extends for fifteen miles
along the river Chacamas; among the ruins are those of fourteen large
a                    edifices, handsomely built
se, bt                     of hewn stone.    " The
_  _..          Palace" has a raised foun]i~!A'1      dation, 40 feet high, 310
long, and 260 wide; en it
the building is 288 feet
)   long, 180 wide, and 25
high, with fourteen doorwanys on each side, and
eleven   at each end.
Copan, in the western part
of Honduras, is three miles
in length, and contains
stone buildings sixty feet
high, richly carved with
arabesque designs. Quirigua (IT gereewah), on the
river Motagua, consists of
a vast array of broken
columns an d monoliths,
__i_      with no building standing. Mitla, in the Mexican State of Oaxaca, was
AZTEC PRIEST AND WARRIORS.  evidently built in splendid
style, but only three buildings remain entire. It abounds in carved
figures and relievos. In the same region is an astronomical monument; on it the sculptured profile of a man holding to his eye a
tube which is directed to the stars.
But Peru contains the most striking monuments of the ancient
civilization. There once flourished a proud empire extending over
twenty degrees of latitude. There was a paved road five hundred
miles long, part. of it remaining to this day. Beautiful monuments
abound, and curious manufactures have lately been unearthed. There
are gauzy articles of pure gold, so light that a breath will waft them
from one's finger. There are fragments of the quippus-a knotted
cord with threads of various colors, with which they kept accounts.




AMONG THE AZTECS.


The mummies show that trepanning, tooth-drawing, and amputation
were practiced.  They had timbrels, stringed instruments, drums,
flutes and trumpets.  Their principal city was supplied with water
through lead pipes inlaid with gold, of which one was recovered
entire, and now supplies the Convent of Santo Domingo. But the
obscurity hanging over their history seems impenetrable. It is proved
that this ancient people, both in the Ohio Valley and further south,
must have had a tolerably regular government and a good system of
agriculture to sustain a dense population; that they were often at war
with a more savage people than themselves, and that they left our
country at least five hundred-more probably a thousand-years ago.
A score of theories have been projected.  This civilization and
these ruins have been in turn attributed to the Assyrians, Egyptians,
Phoenicians, " Lost Tribes * of Israel," Greeks, Romans, Malays,
Northmen, and the Tartar expeditions sent out by Kublai Khan; but
each theory has in turn been proved untenable. The Book of Mormon tells with wearisome details how an Israelite family came to
America six hundred years- before Christ, gave rise to two nations
who alternately built cities and battered them down in war, and
finally the white half became extinct and the others turned to Indians;
and Orson Pratt has amplified the subject in a number of works
which show the plausible absurdities of the astronomer run mad.
Hence, in all Mormon literature, the Indians are spoken of as " L=anites "-whom, for their wickedness, " God cursed with black skins."
But the average Gentile mind is not equal to the task of swallowing
such a story.
But why should we assume that these people came from the Old
World?   Is all civilization necessarily exotic?  There is nothing in
these ruins particularly suggestive of Roman, Greek, or Egyptian
architecture. We see in China that a spontaneous civilization arose
and ran its peculiar course without any aid from Europe. In Europe
we see that civilization began in the south and spread towards
the north; that it was overthrown by northern barbarians, again rose
in the south and spread to the north. Thelatest investigators are of
opinion that a similar movement took place in America: that civilization originated among the Colhuas in Peru and ancient Mayas in
Yucatan; that their successors, the Toltecs, carried it towards the
north; that in the latitude of Ohio they met the northern barbarians
and were slowly driven south, where civilization revived somewhat,
and was again advancing northward when the Spaniards came and,destroyed it. In this theory the Toltecs are set down as our Mound



286


WESTERN WILDS.


Builders, and it is concluded that the last of them left the Ohio Valley a thousand years ago.  There is a vast mass of evidence confirmatory of this view.  And, incidentally it may be remarked, that a Mr.
Wiley, of Kinderhook, Illinois, in the year 1843, did discover in an
ancient mound six bronze plates, curiously corresponding to the description given by Joe Smith of those from which the Book of Mormon was translated. Many impartial critics have since concluded
that, impostor as he was, Smith did obtain from a mound in New York
some kind of curious plates. The entire subject has been strangely
neglected by American scholars.  The finest mound in Marietta was
sold by the city to a private citizen, who carted it away to make brick
of! In a similar spirit an English merchant in Greece, who needed
some marble for the front of his house, tore down a classic pile which
had survived the invasions of Thracian, Roman, Goth and Turk for
two thousand years. But there is yet in America evidence enough for
some determined antiquarian to decide whether the Toltecs were our
ancestors in Ohio.
I give this as the latest theory. As for myself, I grew intensely
interested in the matter from what I saw in Arizona, and on my return to the States eagerly embraced the first opportunity to investigate. I read Baldwin's "Prehistoric America," and was only half
convinced; I consulted Stephens and Catherwood, Squier and Davis,
and got facts without conclusions. I then examined all the authorities
above quoted, and finally came to the deliberate conclusion that the
whole subject is considerably mixed.  If the reader don't like this
theory, he has my permission to construct one of his own.




CHAPTER XVIII.


FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.
IT was still eight hundred miles to the end of the Thirty-fifth
Parallel Road. But universal testimony agreed that the desert grew
worse all the way, till one should cross the Sierra Nevada an'd enter
settled California. Nor was it possible to go unless one had a large
party well armed. It was but three hundred miles to the Mormon
settlements, and some four hundred farther to Salt Lake City. That
way, then, was my easiest,and cheapest route out of the wilderness.
Navajo parties were scattered along the route, and we should doubtless have plenty of company. My guide from Defiance returned there,
carrying with him an immense roll of manuscript which I had prepared at odd hours since leaving that post. He left Moqui June 24th;
Mr. Keams, agreeably to my written request, sent another Indian
on to Wingate with my letters; there they caught the semi-monthy
military express to Santa Fe, and thus my communications of June
24th appeared in the Cincinnati Comzmercial of July 13th-a marvel
of aboriginal mail service. The last day of my stay at Moqui, came
the father and sister of my new guide, the former en route to Utah,
and the latter merely on a friendly visit to the Moquis. My guide
arrived on the 23d, and presented his nelsoass, which read as follows:
" To all whom it may concern:
"The bearer, a Navajo Indian, with his father, have permission to accompany J. H.
Beadle, Esq., to the Mormon settlements. They are good Indians, and I trust any one
who meets them will treat them kindly.
THOMAS V. KEAMS,
Clerk Navajo Agency,
June 21, 1872.                                      Acting Agent."
For convenience sake I christened him John, the universal title
for Indians and Chinese.
The loud rattle of the Moqui bellman roused me betimes on the
morning of the 25th, and immediately I heard the long resonant cry
of Chino on the summit of the highest house, chanting the order of
the day's work, according to their custom. In this morning call he
also recites any special events expected to occur, and doubtless set
forth my intention to depart, for long before the bellman and guard
(287)




288


WESTERN WILDS.


returned from the plain half the population of the mesa were around my
domo waiting to see us off.  No "stirrup cup" this time; I divided
my tobacco with Chino, and presented him the only linen shirt I had
with me, for I had about as much use for it as a Highlander has for a
knee-buckle. The Moquis do not use money in any form, that I could
see, and the flowered calico I had taken along to pay expenses with
was exhausted, as the people had been most kind in furnishing goats'
milk and eggs and carrying in blankets full of grass for my horse.
Chino presented me in turn with a huge roll of mescal, and after a
warm embrace-Moqui good-bye-from him and the interpreters, we
mounted and were off, the whole population joining in a loud song
that died away into a sort of wail as we descended the rock-hewn
gallery.
We traveled north-north-west all day, through a somewhat better
country than that east of Moqui; good bunch-grass was abundant, and
on the ridges were considerable thickets of scrubby pine. In the
mountains which border the oval valley about Moqui there are many
peach trees; the Moquis dry the fruit, and also pound up the seeds
and make a thick paste therefrom. Mescal, also one of their luxuries,
looks when dried like a mass of soft sole-leather, and tastes much like
ripe sugar-cane. It is slightly cathartic, and is a good change from
dry bread and bacon.
To our left all day was a considerable ridge, and by expressive pantomime and a few Navajo words John informed me that west of it
there was a desert with neither grass nor water, which horses could
not cross in a day, but we should go around the north end of it.
About 4 P. M., we reached the first pool, and refilled our canteen and
wicker-jug, as we must make a "dry camp" to-night.  Turning to
the left we reached the summit of the ridge in an hour's hard climbing,
passed a dense thicket of pines, and came out upon a splendid prospect. The cliff we stand on slopes gently for a hundred yards, then
drops suddenly by a rugged precipice, a thousand feet, to a plain
which stretches north and west as far as I can see. But to the north
a dim, blue range appears, and this side of it a dark depression with
overhanging mist, which may be due to the great distance or the presence of water. John indicates that there is a great cliff there, three
times as high as the one before ns, at the bottom of which there is
much water running very fast, and deeper than over my head three
times; but it is as far as we could travel from sun-up till the middle
of the afternoon, and horses could not get up or down there for many
days' travel east and west. This, of course, is the Colorado.




FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.'


289


We skirted the precipice before us till we found a crevice and sort
of rocky stairway, by which we got down to the. plain, and thence
traveled nearly straight west till dark, camping on a ridge with
abundant grass, but no water. After supper John made a large bonfire to signal the other Navajoes, but we received no answer. We
were off by moonlight next morning-John being all impatience to
overtake another party, he said was near; and in three hours reached
them, but they proved to be part of a band of five families who had
moved to a valley there. Here we find the only living spring and
running stream on our route. The valley is bounded on the south by
an abrupt cliff, not more than six hundred feet high, and on the
north by gently. sloping hills, rich in grass. This band 'are tile
wealthiest Navajoes I have yet seen, the five families having over a
thousand sheep and goats, and at least two hundred horses. Men and
women have each a good riding horse, rather elegantly caparisoned,
with stylish bridles and spurs, and in their camp equipage I notice
many handsome vessels and copper kettles. That they are of the
aristocracy is further proved by the fact that they did not loaf about
our camp, or ask for any thing; but received our advances with civil
dignity, and sold us half a gallon of milk for fifty cents, like so many
Christians.
Their herds were just coming in to water: their horses galloping
down the cliffs, the mounted Indian boys after them on slopes where
an American would scarcely venture his horse at a walk, and the
sheep and goats filling the vale with their bleatings) presented a scene
to delight the heart of a pastoral poet. Two horses excited my particular admiration: a heavy-limbed dark bay mare, and a bright
chestnut stallion, light and swift, who galloped around us a few times
in provokingly showy style, his sleek coat glistening as if just from
the hands of a skillful groom. The pair would have sold for six or
seven hundred dollars in the States.
Our horses needed recruiting before taking the desert, and we concluded to stop a day. Buying milk and dried antelope, we had quite
a breakfast feast, after which the chief and family came and took a
cup of coffee and a smoke with me. He was fluent in signs and Navajo, a born egotist, and as inquisitive as the stage "Yankee."  The
sign-language proved insufficient for him to tell all he knew; so he
went toward the cliff and shouted for Espanol, *and soon appeared a
bright lad of about twenty, who saluted me in first-rate Spanish, acting thereafter as interpreter. He informed me he was captured in the
beginning of the last war, and lived with the Mexicans six years,
19




290


WWESTERN WILDS.


whence his Indian name. "The Spaniard;" that he had driven teamn
to Denver, and been on the railroad from there to Cheyenne, and consequently knew all about the Americans and, their ways. The chief
then struck in: it was three days to the Jlormoney hoganda, the first
one where we would cross the river; his horse could go it in two, but
mine could not, for his feet would not stand the stones; his horse was
better than my horse, and he could travel better than I; there was
sand all the way to Mormoney, no more springs, and only water-holes
in the rock. In answer to my questions about the country, he drew
a rude map in the sand with a sharp stick, and pointed out that it was
nearly a day north for my horse to the big water, and two days south
to the little water; that four days west they came together so (joining
his fingers in the form of a V), and that three days north-west of that
place was a great 'lMormoney casa, and that they were people like me,
with plenty to eat and many horses.
This was the last Navajo settlement I visited, though they range
down to the junction of the two Coloradocs; and in the evening they
made our camp merry with their lively conversation. Those who see
the Indian only on the border know nothing of his real character;
for it is only the lowest and meanest of the race that hang about the
white settlements. And their consciousness of oddity in appearance
makes them feel and look meaner. These belonged to a portion of
the tribe numbering a thousand or more who do not agree to the
treaty, or recognize the Agency party. They are quite friendly with
the whites, but have made one raid into Utah since the peace; and at
John D. Lee's I learned that the chestnut stallion, which so excited
my admiration, had been stolen from him. Two hundred years of
war with the Spaniards was surely enough to confuse a people's moral
perceptions, and cause them to consider "levying tribute" on the
whites as a perfectly legitimate operation.
As we gather up in the evening ready to start early, I find my
Navajo whip and knife sheath-among the curiosities I had purchased
-missing. I had not supposed that John knew any English, but
when I pointed out the loss, his face grew dark and he muttered:
"Damn Navajo, sllteal mooch," and darted for a boy some fifty yards
away, whom he dragged into camp. A violent discussion ensued till
the boy, with John's grip tightening on him, pointed to the cliff and
muttered "Espailol." '"Damn Espafiol, shteal," said the guide, and
ran up the cliff, where I heard another violent altercation, Navajo
words mingling amusingly with English and Spanish oaths, and in a
few minutes John returned waving the whip and sheath in triumph.




FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.


291


The Navajoes will steal, but if you hire one he will guard your
property against all the rest, in which respect they are better than any
other Indians. As I made ready for early sleep, Espafiol and other
lads came down on a visit, and sat about the fire smoking our tobacco
and talking as socially with John as if nothing unusual had happened.
All day, June 27th, we traveled in a succession of zigzags. Two
miles down the valley we found it narrowed to a rugged cafnon; a
little farther the canfion became a fearful gorge, into which sunlight
never penetrated. The stream disappeared but a few rods below the
spring, but a scant growth of sickly cottonwoods showed there was
still a moist stratum below. At length we came to a rift in the side
wall, about a rod wide, into which John led the way; there we entered on a steep and dangerous trail, up which we toiled some hundreds of feet to a level sandstone mesa. Across this a few miles, and
then John, ahead of me, suddenly disappeared, and I hurried up to
find him going down another narrow gorge, a mere rift in the rock
not twenty-five feet wide. Down this a mile brought us out on a
sandy plain; across this some five miles, and we came to a perpendicular cliff at least a thousand feet high. Skirting this westward, a
few miles brought us to another gorge, by which we again reached the
summit of the mesa, and before noon found a depression in the rock
which had been filled by a late rain, and around it enough bunchgrass for a noon halt. There we were overtaken by a Navajo lad of
about fifteen years, who had reached Moqui the day after we left, and
followed our trail. He had several fine blankets, woven by his
mother, and expected to trade them for a horse at the Mormoney casa.
We made a " dry camp " for dinner, took an hour's grazing, and were
just off when up galloped Espafiol, also with a few blankets. He
had concluded, an hour after we left, to go to the settlements; because,
as I suspect, he had noted the size of my provision sacks. We were
now four in number, and traveled the rest of the day on a sandstone
ridge tending west-north-west. Far as I could see, the country appeared to slope from this ridge northward and southward towards the
two Coloradoes.
About 5 P. M., we reached a regular water hole, to find it dry-to
the dismay of the Navajoes. After a brief consultation, Espafiol
informed me they would hurry on down the slope south-west, and find
water on the other side of the next valley; and that I might follow
their tracks, poco-poco-poco, (moderate walk). They galloped off, and
were soon out of sight. I followed, and in an hour had lost their




292


WESTERN WILDS.


trail on a sandstone flat. Still I maintained the course toward a
bright, green valley, which now appeared in the distance. I reached
and crossed it, to find that the green was not from grass, as I had
supposed, but from thrifty greasewood. There was not a spear of
grass nor a drop of water, though the shade of green on the brush
showed there was moisture below; and not a horse-track or a Navajo
in sight. I began to feel very uncomfortable. The prospect of being
lost in that place was decidedly unpleasant. I fired my gun two or
three times, and shouted with all my might, but no response. Determined finally to ascend the ridge west and overlook as much
country as possible, I struck up a sloping hollow, and in half a mile
came upon the three Navajoes sitting round a deep pool of water and
grinning in concert. The aborigines had witnessed all my embarrassment, and attempts to trace them below; but, true to the "noble
instincts" of the race, preferred to sit and smile at me working out
my own salvation.
The horses could not get down in the water hole, so they had taken
a blanket full of sand and made a dam across a little depression in
the rock; this we rapidly filled with our wicker-jugs, and so enabled
our horses to drink. At 6 o'clock we were off again, and at 8 made
a "dry camp."  I soon went to sleep, but woke in an hour or so to
find that the Navajoes had built an immense bonfire on a hill near by.
This was soon answered by another, apparently twenty miles to the
south. Our party then took torches of pine limbs and waving them
as they went, built three more fires in a line a little north of west.
The other party responded with three fires in a line apparently due
west. Espafiol translated this to mean that a considerable party of
Navajoes were half a day's ride south of us; that they would go
straight on west, crossing the Little Colorado, and we should not meet
them.
Again we were off by moonlight, an hour ahead of the sun, and at
10 A. M. reached the promised water-hole; but it contained only a
little mud. Hastily consulting together, the Indians rubbed their
fingers in the moist sand and held them up in the air. From this
experiment they decided that the late rain had not extended to this
region; that this pool had been exhausted but a day or two, and therefore water would be plenty in a hole some fifteen miles north, which
always held out a week longer than this. Espanol told me to follow
poco-poco as before; that as his horse was fresh, he would hurry on
to the pool, and come back with two jugs full to meet me. I was
soon alone, and had a weary ride of some twelve miles over a hot




FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.


293


sand plain; then met Espafiol with water enough for me and a hatful
for my horse. They had decided to dine at this pool, which we found
a few miles further on.
In these wastes it is only in a few holes, worn by ancient bowlders,
or in the more rare limestone " pockets," that one can find water; and
one unacquainted with the country might go within a rod of such a
pool and never find it. The boys had only a few pounds of dried
antelope and parched corn; but all we had was in common, and we
rested and feasted an hour. Thence we bore due west to come upon
our former trail, and soon descended into a rich bunch-grass pasture
at least ten miles wide. Far southward a mountain peak, its summit
dazzling white with snow, rose in the form of a sharp cone; and
Espafiol informed me that from the foot of that peak, there was much
timber and game to the Little Colorado; also, that when the first
snow fell on the lower hills, the antelope and other animals came
across into this grassy country by thousands; then the Navajoes
went on their fall hunt, and used to meet the Apaches here long ago,
and had many fights. But now the Apaches have given up this section. We soon came to where skulls were quite numerous, sometimes
with other fragments of human bones. My companions called attention to the difference between those of the two tribes; and when we
came upon five skulls in one place, two Navajo and three Apaches,
Espafiol said with a grin: " Todos muertos, pero mas Apaches" (All
killed, but the most Apaches). In the dry climate, on that sandy
soil, the skulls may have lain there fifty years.
We passed this and another sandstone ridge, on the west side of
which we found a little depression with some five acres of good grass,
and made a "drycamp." The dark cavity and blue mist over the
Colorado had been visible all the afternoon, and John decided that
we should descend the first cliff and go to the nearest spring before
breakfast. We were off next morning by daylight, in a sweeping
trot, and in an hour I heard from Espafiol, in the lead, the glad cry
of" El monte! Grande agua! and hurried up to the cliff; but at the
first view recoiled. Before us was an abrupt descent of some 3,000
feet; then a plain some three miles wide, led to an abrupt and narrow
gorge, 2,000 feet deep, at the bottom of which rolled, in forbidding
whirlpools and rapids, the red and yellow waters of the Colorado.
Notwithstanding the great distance, so far did it lie below me that in
some of the turns I could see the whole width of the stream. On the
opposite side was a similar succession of cliffs, red and yellow sandstone, and seeming even more rugged. How on earth were we ever




294


WESTERN WILDS.


to get down; or, once down, get out again? John smiled at my look
of dismay, and indicated our route down a narrow gulch, breaking
into the cliff near us, which it seemed to me certain destruction to
enter.
Off horses, girths tightened, and packs carefully examined; then
walking behind the animals, with lariats attached to the bridle and
trailed over their backs, we ventured on the descent; John in front
shouting directions, the boy next repeating them, and Espafiol third
translating them to thb writer, who cautiously brought up, or rather
brought down, the rear. Iw
ahad made up my mind to this
at first glan the; for if either
ohorse should co nclude to gv
with a ricochet, sweeping all
below him, I thought two or
th ree Indians could be bettero
spared than one white man.
speciesThe narrow                   path wound f
e eIthis way and that, to every
Ipoint of the compassil, redun-d a     gi o
ing the main incline of seventy degrees or more to a
series with a slope of fortyfive or less; at times away
into the hill, and again on
the outward turn, around the
projecting peaks. The dangt~r is less than it seems; as
-     if one fell he would be caught
DOWN THll CLIFF.         by the next offset, but a few
feet below. Sometimes we found a square offset in the path of two
feet or so, when the horses would carefully drop the fore feet, having
abundant room to catch, and bring 'the hind feet down with the
caution of an acrobat. Two hours brought us to the plain, when we
heard a shout that seemed in mid air above our heads, and, looking
up, saw three more Navajoes on the descent. They looked like some
species of animal clinging to the cliff.
We reached the promised spring and found no water.  The Navajoes insisted there was some in the gulch, so we hunted along it toward the mountain 'till we found a little moist sand and green, watery
grass; there we fell to with our tin-cups and butcher-knives and dug




FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.


several holes, which soon
filled. The water was cool,
but tasted like a mild infusion of Epsom   salts.  It
made coffee, but all tle sugar it would dissolve did
not sweeten it perceptibly.
Along the cliff, in a northeast direction, every mile or
so a section of the lower cliff
seemed to leave it and bend
back to join the upper one,
and down these "benches"
we slowly worked our way.
When no more than a thousand feet above the stream
we came upon an abrupt
ridge, at least two thousand
feet high, putting out to the
river and completely shutting off the trail in that direction. Over this we must
go. But first we climbed to
a little cave at the foot of
the perpendicular cliff, in
which we found a "pocket"
of cool, clear water.  The
path turned south-east, and,
walking in front of our
horses, we again commenced
climbing. It was the worst
job we had, and defies description.  The  Navajoes
were an hour ahead of me
whlen I reached the summit; but there was only one
trail, and that a plain one.
The opposite side of this
ridge broke into a dozen
pointed spurs.  Out. one,
down a slight slope and into


" CLIMBExD  TO A LITTLE CAVY IN WUICH WE rOUNr
WATER."




296


WESTERN WILDS.


a groove in the rock, I found the trail leading along back into the hollow; then out another ridge and back into the second hollow; then
back again around all the windings of the two hollows, and I found
myself on the sharp end of the first ridge again, but in a groove five
hundred feet below the one where I had left it. Around this peak I
followed to the south-west, then back and forward till I was dizzy,
and more times than I could count.  I came out at length upon a
gentle slope, which brought me down to the plain at a point where the
river was running nearly straight north.  It was 3 P. M., and when
I looked back upon, the brow of the mountain, which we left at sunrise, it seemed but a nile or two away.  But it was at least 5,000 feet
above us.
We shouted and fired guns, but in vain. We saw the house on the
opposite side, and people moving about, but they failed to take notice
of us.  John's father and two other Navajoes soon arrived, having
killed a young antelope on the way. The meat at this season was
very tough and hard, but if we were to stay here long, it must serve as
our substitute for bread. We were nearly out of provisions; the sand
flat contained nothing for our horses, and we must cross soon.  So
early next morning we commenced hunting for drift-timber, the boys
climbing over the sharp ridge which rose a hundred feet high, just below us.  A shout of surprise brought me to that side, and I saw the
boys had discovered a boat cached against a rock and covered with
brush, leaving only the bow visible. They rigged an arrangement to
let me down with lariats, where they had climbed, and we all went
to work on the boat.  In three hours we had it out of the sand and
brush and into the river; then the Navajocs were clamorous for me
to make an immediate trial of crossing. But we found no oars. The
boat was eighteen feet long, with places for four rowers; it had two
compartments, and on the stern was the name "Emma Dean."   I
concluded, correctly, as it proved, that it was one of Major Powell's.
But all our search brought to light no oars.  They were cached so
effectually that even Navajoes could not find them.  I explained to
the boys that only a mile ortwo below there was a cataract, and, to
attempt the passage, we must haul the boat up stream at least a mile.
I judged they would never get the boat around the first point, as the
rocky headland overhung the river at a height of sixty feet or more,
under which the bend threw the full force of the current in dangerous whirls.
But they fell to work at once, and, by a most ingenious arrangement of lariats, brought the boat around. Meanwhile the two old




FROM MOQUl TO THE COLORADO.


297


men with their butcher-knives had hacked out rude oars from driftwood, and all were clamorous for me to cross at once. They could
not understand why- a Melicano, who professed to understand rowing,
should hesitate. But I did not like to risk it. The very aspect of
the place frightened me: the lofty walls inclosing a cafnon six or seven
thousand feet deep; the rocky face, red and scarred as if blasted by
angry lightnings; the bare sand-plain, and the swift river roaring
against projecting rocks, all looked very different from the placid Wabash and Ohio, where I learned rowing.   A mile above, the upper and lower cliff appeared to run together, with an offset of but a
rod or two, and there the sheer descent from the plateau to the river
was at least six thousand feet-almost perpendicular. I fixed my eye
on pieces of drift-wood to measure the current; it was. a little more
than twenty minutes from the time they came in sight above till they
entered the rapids below. How could I hope to paddle across in less
than twenty minutes?
It was 1 P. M., ant we had the boat at our camp and two rude oars.
I took my coffee and sardines, chewed mnescal reflectively for half an
hour, and then proposed to the boys that we make our blankets into
horse-collars and lariats into gears, and haul the boat across the point.
The bend above, I had noticed, would throw it off shore, and with the
aid of an eddy put us half way across. They objected decidedly: the
horses would kick each other, and forty other evils to their property
would result. Ignorant as they were of that element, they much preferred taking it by water. Their own lives and limbs they were
ready to risk; but, said Espanol, their horses were their wealth-did
I ask them to go home poor? They had evidently adopted the sound
philosophy that life without some property is not worth caring for.
So to the river we betook ourselves, though to me the case looked
hopeless. The hank was so steep that it could only be descended once
in two or three hundred feet, and overgrown thickly nearly all the
way with willows and thorny bushes, often twenty feet out into the
water. The rope could not be dragged over these; it had to be passed
outside of them, taking advantage of a bare point to haul in, rest and
make a fresh start.  The four young fellows stripped and took to the
water. I, ini the same condition, sat astride the bow and shoved off
shore.  They would drag the boat to a convenient point, then take
the rope in their mouths and pass themselves around the willows,
holding by thqir hands with bodies in the water.  A most ridiculous
sight it would have been to one free from our solicitude: the naked
barbarians plunging and scrambling in the river, the naked white




298


WESTERN WILDS.


man, almost barbarous for the occasion, sitting astride the bow shouting in wretched Spanish and mixed Navajo, and sometimes plunging
into the shore-mud or swift stream, where a little swimming had to be
done. We would toil until steaming with sweat, and then into
the river, which felt like ice-water.  Nobody ever "catches cold " in
this country, or I should have expected a musical case of asthma and
catarrh as a result.  In the middle of our work a woman came to
the opposite bank, but the wind had risen to such a blast that we
could not converse, and I could barely make out the words, " old
man, to-morrow."
At night the wind fell; the woman reappeared, and shouted that in
three days the "old man" would return; if we had provisions it
would be safest to wait.  Next morning our horses presented fine subjects for the study of anatomy. We must risk it; so, taking John
and Espafol, I shoved off; and, taking advantage of an eddy, reached
the opposite side only a mile below.  Making our way to the house,
I was greeted by the woman with:
"My God, stranger, did you risk your life to swim that river?"
An explanation and request for provisions resulted in the statement:
" We are pretty thin ourselves."  If we had put up a white signal
Saturday, "the old gent would have come down at once, but he
thought it was only Injins. Had gone Sunday with his other woman
to the ranche near Kanab.  These were the other woman's four children here; had five of her own, making a right smart family of nine,
'thout the old gent, but none of 'enl big enough to risk the boat;
had no meat, and only ten pounds o' flour, but plenty of milk, butter,
cheese and eggs-would they do?" I rather thought they would, and
requested that about five pounds of each might be served up at once.
She got me a splendid breakfast, and gave the Indians a plentiful
supply, lending them also a kettle. She gave me the oars with which
we could cross at will; but to cross the horses we must wait till " Major Doyle," as she named the "old man," came back.
Two days passed, and our horses were hungry enough to chew
sand-burrs and desert weed.  The days I spent at the cabin, talking
to the Mormon woman; the nights on the other side, sleeping or
listening to the old man's stories about his people. They were all of a
piece: the Navajoes had been very rich-they were now poor; they
were great warriors and good Indians. But the Utes were dogs, and
the Apaches wolves and snakes, and the Zunis grofind-hogs, and the
Melicanoes never would have whipped the Navajoes if they had not
got other Indians to help tliem.  In short, his harangue sounded so




FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO.


299


much like an ordinary Mormon sermon-all self-glorification and dis-,
paragement of every body else-that I got tired and dropped to sleep
just as lie was telling how great a warrior his father was, and how
many horses he once took from the Noch kyh (Mexican towns).
As Espafiol rendered all this into voluminous Spanish, with many
cross-questionings on my part and repetitions on his, to make sure I
had the correct meaning, the conversation would have had its charms
to the comparative philologist. Sitting, in the summer night by our
camp-fire on the great river, named by the Spaniard three centuries
ago, its current roaring against the rocks below us, part of the romance of the sixteenth century seemed to return-that romance made
real by the lingual contest between the Navajo and Spanish languages.
It is scarcely possible there should be a greater contrast between any
two tongues spoken by man-the one the oldest of living languages,
and first heir to the Latin, no one knows how much older; soft,
smooth, flowing, musical and rich in expressive inflections; the result
of three thousand years of Roman, Moorish and Gothic cultivation;
with the wonderful and stately march of the Latin sentence, the soft
lisp of the Moor and sonorous gravity of the Goth: the other, young*est born in the family of languages, with roots striking only in the
shallow soil of hard and primitive dialects, probably not a thousand
years old as a separate tongue; without cultivation, without letters,
with no abstract expressions, and names only for the material and
tangible, a harsh alliance of the nasal and guttural, the speech of
barbarous mountaineers.  Yet here they are found on the same soil,
struggling for the mastery-the Spanish an enduring monument to
the energy and bravery of the Castilians of the sixteenth century, who
overran and subdued more than half of the New World. Every time
a Navajo says agua instead of toh he bears unwitting and involuntary
tribute to the hardy vigor and bold intellect of that wonderful race,
who carried their arms and arts through these remote regions.
On the other side we talked at random, without need of an interpreter. Mrs. Doyle, as the lady called herself, was a thorough
frontier woman, and informed me that "Our old gent had had
eighteen wives. Two left him, one went to the States, and another to
Montana, and when McKean got up such a bobbery he (Doyle) divided
his property among them that were living. Old gent had had fifty-two
children, most of 'em living; had been through New Mexico, and all
that country, with the Mormon battalion, and had been a big man in
the Church, but was now here on a mission, tending to this ferry.
The Mormons will establish a fine ferry here and a good road, as they,




300


WESTERN WILDS.


intend to settle all the good country on the other side, and are now
settling into Arizona as fast as they can.  Will settle Potato Valley
first, then down in the White and San Francisco Mountains," etc.
Her own history was both sad and interesting. She was born in
Brighton, England, and reared in London. Her fblks were well-to-do
English, and signs of early education and refinement showed plainly
through the rough coating of a frontier and Mormon life.  She had
embraced Mormonism at the age of twenty, and come at once to
Utah (sixteen years before) in the first hand-cart coimpany. They
got through with little suffering.  It was the company after
that suffered so.  She "had gone in second to Major Doyle,"
by express request of Brigham   Young.   They had pioneered
all the new towns south.   Had a fine place in Harmony, and
sold it for $4,000, when ordered here on a mission. She was living
here, a hundred miles from the nearest settlement, in the extreme of
hardship, and her folks begging her to come to them.  And now, at
the end of all these sacrifices, a growing skepticism was evident in her
talk. It was plain that she doubted seriously whether all this had not
been vain-worse than useless. She firmly believed in polygamy, she
said, when she came a girl from England, but not now; there was so
much evil in it that it could not be from God.
Four days had passed, and still no "old gent." The Indians lost
heart, and John came to request a nelsoass-my certificate that he
had seen me safe across the Colorado. I furnished them all the bread
and cheese Mrs. Doyle could spare, and at noon they started to return.
I watched them for hours, as they slowly climbed the red cliffs, and
with a feeling near akin to sorrow, for the simple aborigines had been
more company to me than I could have believed possible. It was my
last sight of the Navajoes-a most interesting race of barbarians, and
the only Indians for whom I could ever feel any personal friendship.
In three hours after their departure " Major Doyle " returned, and we
crossed my horse without difficulty. The method pursued is for one
to row the skiff, while another holds up the horse's head by the bridle,
the animal swimming just behind the boat.
q




CHAPTER XIX.


A STARTLING INTERVIEW.
THE hot July day drew to a close, and my host and I sat before
his log-cabin and gazed upon the, red hills, which took on a pleasing
softness in the light of the declining sun. The view was one for the
poet,  the                      _ _  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
painter, and   _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
the novelist.   The
lofty mount ___          __
ains  which__                          _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
wa l in  th                           _ _ _ __ _ _
here  gave_____
back a few    '~         /__
rods  from       1__                          ____
edge. From
the mountamn summits, forty
miles northward~, Pahreah Creek
down by a
series of
wild cascades into a
deep gorge,
whic   me-MOUTH OF PAHREAH CREEK, NEAR JOHN D. LEE'S.
andering across the plateau, grew into a rugged cafion, and here, at
its junction with the Colorado, widened its granite jaws to inclose a
small plat of level land. On all sides rose the red and yellow hills,
by successive "1benches," to a plateau five thousand feet above; on
(301)




302


WESTEWN WITD


that again red buttes rose thousands of feet higher, their, wind-worn
and polished summits ever inaccessible to man, and barely brushed by
the bald eagle in his loftiest flights.
To this little glen, the only cultivable land to be found for hundreds of miles along the Colorado, there were three entrances: by a
hidden and rocky trail up Pahreah Cafnon, leading over the summit
and down the Sevier River; by the way we came in, and by a narrow
track leading up to the Kanab Plateau, and thence south-west around
the point of the mountain. A quick eye could command every approach; a quick hand could deal destruction upon all comers if so disposed, or a fugitive in a few minutes reach concealed places where a
regiment of soldiers could not find him. It seemed a place by nature
fitted for the retreat of the hunted-for an "old man of the mountains" who had nothing to expect from the world but its hostility.
And such, in solemn truth, it was.
A surprise of no ordinary kind was in store for me. I had grown
well acquainted with "Major Doyle," as his wife called him, and in
two days' intercourse we had learned considerable of each other's
views and experiences. Like many Mormons with whom I have
stopped hlie had "a word of prayer" after supper; asked fervently for
God's blessing on " Thy Servant Brigham," and that (" Thou would'st
turn away the hearts of the Lamanites from making war on thy
people," besides referring warmly to " our making the desert blossom
as the rose; " and not long after in conversation referred to the Government's dealings with the Indians as a "d-d shame, that had li't
ought to be allowed." But this sort of incongruity is so common in
Utah that I did not notice it. At supper, on the third of July, he
grew very animated while telling of some horses he had lost, and how
they were recovered from the thieves; and used this sentence: "The
sheriff said, ' These are Lee's horses-I know 'em.' "  b Lee's!" said
I, "Does he live near here?"-for they had told me at Defiance that
I ought to go by Lee's Ferry. My host hesitated. I fancied there
was a faint flush on his weather-beaten face, as he replied:
" That's what they sometimes call me."
"What!" exclaimed I; " I thought your name was Doyle."
"So it is-John Doyle Lee."   I almost jumped out of my chair
with astonishment and confusiqp. Here I was the guest of, and in
familiar conversation with, this most notorious of all notorious Mormons-the reputed planner and leader in the Mountain Meadow
Massacre! My confusion was too great to be concealed, and I blundered out: P"I have often heard of you.



A STARTLING INTERVIEW.


-"And heard nothing that was good, I reckon." This, with some
bitterness of tone. He then continued, speaking rapidly:
"Yes, I told my wives to call me Doyle to strangers; they've been
kicking up such a muss about polygamy, McKean and them, and
I'm a man that's had eighteen wives; but now that the Supreme
Court has decided that polygamy's part of a man's religion, and the
law's got nothin' to do with it; it do n't make no difference, I reckon."
Of course this was only a subterfuge, 6ut I could not have ventured
to recur to the real reason of his being located in this wild place, if
he had not approached the subject himself soon after. Then I hinted
as delicately as possible, that if it were not disagreeable to him, I
should like to hear " the true account of that affair which had been
the cause of his name being so prominent." It had grown dark meanwhile, and this gave him, I thought, more freedom in his talk. (It is
to be noted that he did not know my name or business.) Clearing his
throat nervously, he began, with many short stops and repetitions:
"Well, I suppose you mean that-well, that Mountain Meadow affair? Well, I'll tell you what is the exact truth of it, as God is my
Judge, and the why I am out here like an outlaw-but I'm a goin' to
die like a man, and not be choked like a dog-and. why my name's
published all over as the vilest man in Utah, on account of what
others did-but I never will betray my brethren, no, never-which it
is told for a sworn fact that I violated two girls as they were kneeling and begging to me for life; but, as God is my Judge, and I expect
to stand before Him, it is all an infernal lie."
He ran off this and much more of the sort with great volubility;
then seemed to grow more calm, and went on:
"Now, sir, I'll give you the account exactly as it stood, though for
years I've rested under the most infamous charges ever cooked up on
a man. I've had to move from point to point, and lost my property,
when I might have cleared it up any time by just saying who was
who. I could have proved that I was not in it, but not without
bringing in other men to criminate them. But I wouldn't do it.
They had trusted in me, and their motives were good at the start, bad
as the thing turned out..
" But about the emigrants. They was the worst set that ever crossed
the plains, and they made it so as to get here just when we was at
war.. Old Buchanan had sent his army to destroy us, and we had
made up our minds that they should not find any spoil. We had been
making preparations for two years, drying wheat and caching it in the
mountains; and intended, when worst come to worst, to burn and




304                 WESTERN WILDS.


XEAD OF THE GRAND CASON.




A STARTLING INTERVIEW.


305


destroy every thing, and take to the mountains and fight it out guerrilla style. And I tell you this people was all hot and enthusiastic,
and just at that time these emigrants came.
" Now they acted more like devils than men; and just to give you
an idea what a hard set they was: when Dr. Forney gathered up the
children two years after-fifteen, I believe, they was-and sent word
back to their relatives, they sent word that they didn't want 'em,
and wouldn't have any thing to do with 'em. And that old Dr.
Forney treated the children like dogs, hammerin' 'em around with
his big cane.
"The company had quarreled and separated east of the mountains,
but it was the biggest half that come first. They come south of Salt
Lake City just as all the men was going out to the war, and lots of
women and children lonely. Their conduct was scandalous. They
swore and boasted openly that they helped shoot tie guts out of
Joe Smith and Hyrum Smith, at Carthage, and that Buchanan's
whole army was coming right behind them, and would kill every
G-d d-n Mormon in Utah, and make the women and children
slaves, and.... They had two bulls, which they called one
'Heber' and the other 'Brigham,' and whipped 'em thro' every town,
yelling and singing, blackguarding and blaspheming oaths that
would have made your hair stand on end. At Spanish Fork-it can
be proved-one of 'em stood on his wagon-tongue, and swung. %
pistol, and swore that he helped kill old Joe Smith, and was ready
for old Brigham Young, and all sung a blackguard song, 'Oh, we've
got the ropes and we'll hang old Brigham before the snow flies,' and
all such stuff. Well, it was mighty hard to bear, and when they got
to where the Pahvant Indians was, they shot one of them dead and
crippled another. But the worst is coming.
"At Corn Creek, just this side of Fillmore, they poisoned a spring
and the flesh of an ox that died there, and gave that to the Indians,
and some Indians died. Then the widow Tomlinson, just this side,
had an ox poisoned at the spring, and she thought to save the hidle
and tallow; and rendering it up, the poison got in her face, and
swelled it up, and she died. This roused every body. Well, they
came on down the road, and with their big Missouri whips would
snap off the heads of chickens and throw 'em into their wagons; and
when a widow, Missis Evans, came out and said: 'Do n't kill my
chickens, gentlemen, I'm a poor woman,' one of 'em yelled, 'Shut up you
G-d d —d Mormon, or I'll shoot you!' Then her sons and all her folks
got out with guns, and swore they'd have revenge on the whole outfit.
20




306


WESTERN WILDS.


"By this time the Indians had gathered from all directions, and
overtook 'em at Mountain Meadow. They planned it to crawl down
a narrow ravine and get in close, and make a rush altogether. But
one fool Indian fired too soon and gave the alarm. This spoilt the
plan, but all in reach fired, and killed, well, five or six men. Then
a sort o' siege began. The men inside did well-the best they could
have done. They got the wagons corraled and dug rifle-pits.. The
Indians could not hit any more of the people, but shot nearly all
their oxen and some horses. I believe it was after three or four
days' siege that I went to the Indians and tried to persuade them
away; for our folks had had a council, and while I said, 'Persuade
the Indians away, the other brethren said, 'Let the Indians punish
them.' I said to the Indians 'You've killed more of them than died
of your men, and you've harassed them a good deal, killed their
stock, and punished them enough-now let them go.' But they said
these white men were all bad, and they would kill all. Jacob Hamlin, the agent, you know, was away from home then, and I had n't
much control over the Indians. We was weak then in that section
to what we are now, and did not really have the upper hand of the
Indians; and maybe, if we interfered with 'em, it would cause trouble
with us. I heard women inside begging and praying, and saying
that if the Mormons knew how they were situated they would come
and help, no matter if some had treated 'em badly. And they begged
some of the fellows to break out and go and get help. Then I run
a big risk to get inside the corral. It was pitch dark, and I could see
the line of fire from the guns, and the balls whistled all about me.
One cut my shirt in front, and another my sleeve, and I could not get
through. But I went back, and was pretty near getting the Indians
all right, and would have succeeded fully, but then come the-thing
that spoiled all.
" Three of the emigrants had broken out of the corral and gone
back for help; and next day met some of our boys at a spring. Well,
I don't excuse our men-they were enthusiastic, you know, but their
motives were good. They knew these emigrants at once; one of them
was the man that insulted widow Evans, another the one that swung
his pistol and talked so at Spanish Fork. The boys fell on them at
sight, shot one dead and wounded another. But the two of them got
back to the company.
"Then came another council, and all our men said: 'We can't let
'em go nowv; the boys has killed some, and it won't do to let one get
through alive, or here they'll come back on us with big reinforce



A STARTLING INTERVIEW.


307


ments.' And, to be sure, why should we risk any thing, and maybe
have a fuss with the Indians, to save people who done nothing but
abuse us? But I still said, 'Let 'em go; they've been punished
enough.'
" I never will mention any names, or betray my brethren. Those
men were God-fearing men. Their motives were pure. They knelt
down and prayed to be guided in council. But they was full of zeal.
Their zeal was greater than their knowledge.
"I went once more to the Indians, and begged them to kill only the
men. They said they would kill every one; then I told them I would
buy all the children, so all the children was saved. There was not
over fifteen white men actually went in with the Indians, and I don't
believe a single emigrant was actually killed by a white man.
"An express had been sent to Brigham Young at first to know what
to do, and it is a pity it didn't get back; for those enthusiastic men will
obey counsel. The president sent back orders, and told the man to
ride night and day, by all means to let the emigrants go on; to call off
the Indians, and for no Mormons to molest them. But the thing was
all over before the express got back to Provo. There was about eighty
fighting men that was killed. I don't know how many women, though
not many. All the children was saved. The little boy that lived with
us cried all night when he left us, and said he'd come back to us as
soon as he got old enough. Old Forney, when he come for 'em,
got all in his tent and would not let 'em visit or say good-bye to any
body. One run away and hid under the floor of the house, and Forney dragged him out and beat him like a dog with his cane. They
say he murdered the baby on the plains, because it was sickly and
troublesome.
" It is told around for a fact that I could tell great confessions, and
bring in Brigham Young and the Heads of the Church. But if I was
to make forty confessions, I could not bring in Brigham Young. His
counsel was: 'Spare them, by all means.' But I am made to bear the
blame. Here I am, old, poor, and lonely, away down in this placecarrying the sins of my brethren. But if I endure, great is my reward.
Bad as that thing was, I will not be the means of bringing troubles on
my people; for, you know yourself, that this people is a misrepresented
and cried-down community. Yes, a people scattered and peeled, whose
blood was shed in great streams in Missouri, only for worshiping God
as he was revealed to them; and if at the last they did rise up and
shed blood of their enemies, I won't consent to give 'em up."
Such was the remarkable story told me by Major John Doyle Lee. I




308


WESTERN WILDS.


will not now anticipate my story,by pointing out its truth and errors;
for in later chapters I give the facts, and have here set down but a
small part of our conversation-only such as I could remember beyond
doubt, and jot down at my first halting-place next day. Lee talked
over the whole history of his life, before and since the massacre.
After that event he continued to reside in Harmony, was a leader
in all public affairs there, and often entertained Brigham Young
when the latter visited that section.  Thence he was ordered "on
a mission" to establish new settlements further into the wilderness;
and obeyed, as do all good Mormons, without a murmur, selling his
fine place in Harmony for four thousand bushels of wheat. From
Cedar City to Santa Clara, and thence to Kanab and Mangrum's settlement, he had continued to remove, and was finally sent down here
to maintain a ferry and act as interpreter anfl mediator among the
Indians. He spoke the tongues of all adjacent tribes, and had their
good will. He dwelt at some length on his liking for the boy whom
he had saved from the massacre and taken to live with him; and related with pride the boy's promise to come back as soon as he got old
enough. Unfortunately for his own good, that boy, now a man, did
return. He became a noted desperado, under the name of Idaho Bill,
and is now serving out a long sentence in the Utah penitentiary!
Misfortune followed the poor children to the last.  Mormon accounts say that eighteen were saved alive. Of these Jacob Hamlin
says that one was captured by, or went off with, the Navajo Indians,
and may now be among them; another was killed "because he knew too
much," and the youngest, a mere baby, died on the way to the States,
'after being recovered by Dr. Jacob Forney, Indian Agent in 1859.
Of the fifteen who reached St. Louis few could find any relatives, and
the remainder were sent to the Orphan Asylum, and in time scattered
thence all over the South-west, knowing of their families only by hearsay or vague remembrance. John Calvin Sorrow, the only one who
remembered the massacre, lives somewhere in Arkansas; the girl who
was supposed to be his sister, is married to a resident of East Tennessee. With no family ties and no parental care, it is not surprising
that some of the survivors have done badly.
Midnight had come before we finished our talk, and turned in together upon a straw tick beside the house. Little did I think that
three years from that time I was to see Lee a prisoner before the
Federal courts; for, like all old residents of Utah, I had long abandoned hope that the Government could be spurred into doing any
thing to execute justice in that Territory. Even then I had no doubt




A STARTLING INTERVIEW.


309


of his guilt, though I could, and can now, see extenuating circumstances. John D. Lee was a born fanatic. Of good size and physical
frame, with light hair, fiery blue eye, gross composition and warm red
blood, he was also a sensualist. His high but narrow forehead, his
education-first as an intense sectarian, accustomed to destroy the
spirit of Scripture by twisting the letter; then as a Mormon-made
him a thorough casuist; so thorough that he deceived himself first of
all. The man who deliberately refuses to look at the doubtful points
in his religion, from that hour ceases to be intellectually honliest.
Thence, by successive steps, he often convinces himself that any thing
is right which helps his church, and compounds for gross indulgence
in one direction by religious zeal in another.  Mormonism aggravated all of Lee's faults; it gave free rein to his all-engrossing lust, and
spurred his savage temper on to deeds of blood. Inl Ohio he would
have been a sour Puritan, compounding for little tricks in trade or
big fits of passion, by austerity in religion and extreme decorum. In
Utah he became what I have described. As said by a Mormon elder,
later an apostate, who had known him long and well: "John D. Lee
is a man who w9uld divide his last biscuit with the traveler upon the
desert, and cut that traveler's throat the next hour if Brigham Young
said so."
Independence Pay, 1872, I celebrated by a ride of thirty-five miles.
Bidding the Lees good-bye at an early hour, I slowly ascended the
winding trail which leads to the great plateau between the Colorado
and the Wasatch. Here this plateau runs to a narrow point, there
being but little more than room for a wagon between the cliff on one
side and the river gorge on the other. Here, at the head of the long
canfon, the Powell party had their rendezvous; they were now in
Kanab for a midsummer's rest, but their boats were moored here.
From the bridle path I looked straight down the river, which appeared to soon loose itself between red battlements. On both sides
rose the water-worn walls, for two thousand feet nearly perpendicular,
the lines on every foot of their faces showing the successive points at
which the water had stood during all the countless thousands of years
in which it slowly fashioned this passage for itself. When it ran in a
shallow channel along the present summit, all the Colorado Basin was
a region of lakes and marshes, with here and there an island of firm
earth, covered by dense forests, and rich in matted grasses and flowers.
Then the mist from this inland sea washed the western base of Pike's
Peak, and the Colorado descended by a series of cascades, through a
fall of four thousand feet, into the head of the Gulf of California.




310


WESTERN WILDS.


A little later, and it had cut so deep as to drain the shallower lakes
and marshes; then all the interior between the Wasatch and Rocky
Mountains was covered by dense forests, lively with game. A little
later, and the regions became the abode of strange semi-civilized races.
Their remains are found over an area of three hundred thousand
square miles. Still the river went on cutting deeper and deeper,
draining the last reservoirs, and opening a way for the springs to discharge at lower points; and slowly sucking the life out of its own
basin. It cut down through sandstone to limestone, through limestone to granite, and deep into the granite, till the former fertile vales
were changed to barren plateaus; the semi-civilized races vanished,
leaving few survivors, and the "backbone of the continent" became
a desert, with only here and there an oasis.
From the point where I reached the plateau, it slowly widens westward for a hundred miles, the mountains continuing due west, and the
river bearing south-west. Fifteen miles south-westward, over a desert
and along the foot of the mountains, brought me to the first gulch containing water and grass, where I rested till 2 P. M. Thence over
another barren mesa, twenty miles brought me to Jacob's Pool, where
the pasture lands begin. The pool is a clear, cold spring, at the head
of a gulch, sending out a stream the size of one's wrist, which runs
two or three hundred yards down the plain before it. disappears. The
largest mountain streams in this section never run more than a mile or
two on to the plain. In some places a channel can be traced nearly
to the Colorado. The Wasatch here has an average elevation of five
thousand feet above this plateau, and there are but three places in a
hundred miles where horses and footmen can get down through side
gulches to the river.
John D. Lee had preempted the pool, and had his wife Rachel living there in a sort of brush-tent, making butter and cheese from a
herd of twenty cows. She and her son and daughter of sixteen and
eighteen years were the sole inhabitants, no neighbors within less
than forty miles either way. Lee's other wives were scattered about
on ranches farther north; four at Mangrum's settlement and two others at Harmony. One left him, and lives at Beaver; another went to
Montana with a Gentile, and still another is in the States, "living
fancy, I reckon," said the wife at the river, who gave me this information. There was no room in the tent, and Mrs. Lee gave me a straw
tick out doors-luxury enough for one who had slept with only a
blanket between him and the ground for many weeks; and at this
oasis I rested a day and a half.




A STARTLING INTERVIEW.


311


Thence, on the afternoon of the 6th, I rode eighteen miles nearly
straight west to the first water, and encamped for the night in a rich
bunch-grass pasture, dotted with scrubby pines. After bread and tea,
I hoppled my horse and slept till near daylight, then took a hasty
breakfast and canteen of water and was off for Navajo Wells, thirty
miles ahead, and the first place where water could be had.,I traveled
along the original Navajo trail from the Rio Grande to Southern Nevada; and early in the day commenced the ascent of the Buckskin, a
low range of partially-wooded hills, putting out across the plateau
nearly to the Colorado. All over this I found good blue-grass, which
is very rare every-where in the Rocky Mountains. The grass on the
plains here consists of two species of bunch-grass-the common yellow and the white-topped varieties.  But neither forms a sod or
sward, or gives more than a faint tinge of green to the landscape.
My general direction for the day was north-west, working toward the
Utah line, though the road at times wound about to every point. West
of the. Buckskin was a singular flood plain some six miles wide, with
rich soil, but no moisture, and nearly destitute of grass. I had traveled till 3 P. M., looking closely for Navajo Wells for the last few
miles, when I emerged from a rocky ridge scantily clothed with
piilons, upon another flood plain, and was at once aware that I had
missed the Wells.  But soon an Indian overtook me, whom I hailed
with "Toh, agua, water!" using the three languages spoken in this region; but he understood neither. Then I had recourse to pantomime,
when he rejoined, "Pah to wicki-up," and directed me to follow. Two
miles back and half a mile from the trail was the water-hole, and near
by the camp of his tribe, a horribly filthy and repulsive gang of some
forty savages. A hole in the sand contained the only water, which
was lukewarm, slimy and full of nasty black creatures; but it was
that or nothing, and my horse drank it under protest. For his courtesy I divided my stock of meat and cheese with the chief, who became very communicative, preferred a request for tobacco, suggested
in pantomime that I camp there for the night, and asked how long
since I left the Navajoes. They had at first sight recognized my rig
as Navajo, for every tribe in the mountains knows the handiwork of
every other. The degraded natives of this region are known as the
Pi-Utes, the Pi-Edes and the Lee-Biches, and are the very lowest of
the race. In summer they fare sumptuously on pifton nuts, roots,
grass-seeds and white sage; but in winter they are reduced to bugs,
lizards, grubs and ground-mice, occasionally assisted by donations
from the settlements, or the flesh of such Mormon stock as die of




312


WESTERN WILDS.


disease.  They are totally devoid of skill in any respect, and when
furnished with boards can not construct a shelter from the rain.
Eight miles farther I camped for the night; was off, by reason of
the cold, an hour before daylight, and rode into Kanab just as the
first rays of sunshine were streaming over the rugged gaps of the eastern mountains. Kanab sits back in a beautiful cove in the mountains,
something
like a crescent in shape,
the mountain  peaks
east and west
of the town
putting o0 ut
southward to
the Arizona
line. All the
land  within
the cove appears rich,
and the town
site is irrigated from a
considerable
creek running
out of a narrow gulch.
By direction
of the first
person met, I
went to Jacob Hiamlin's
"THE LITTLE SAVAGES FIXED AN UNWINKING GAZE UPON ME."  house, where
I had two
days' rest.  I was most fortunate in my selection.  Three of Major
Powell's nken were here, waiting for his arrival from Salt Lake City.
Here, also, I found Mr. and Mrs. Thomson, of Major Powell's party,
so altogether we had a very delightful little Gentile society in this
Mormon stronghold. Hamlin, who is a Church Agent of Indian Affairs, struck in on the subject of Mormonism the first meal; but as I
was once more in the land of beef and biscuit, hot coffee and other




A STAR TLING IN TER VIE' W.


313


luxuries$ I could stand up to any amount of argument.  We had it
hot for two days, but parted friends.  Kanab is quite new, and has
but two hundred inhabitants. To' Mr. and Mrs. Thomson I am under
many obligations, not only for writing conveniences, but for many
hours of social enjoyment; and as for the Powell party generally, my
meeting them here was a rare piece of good fortune.
For the first time
in my life I found it
ig this trip.  Thest               A PIE
Saints might have a                            gro
prejudice against me,
so I introduced myself to Lee by my
middle name, "Hanson," and by the same
title traveled to Salt
Lake City.   TBhere
was something grotesque in "Mr. Hanson"  and   "Major
Doyle" meeting in
the wilderness, when
the one was the
Mountain Meadow's
butcher and the other
the Gentile writer
who had done his
best to make him notorious.
Striking south-west              A PI-EDE CERES.
from Kanab, in a few miles I very nearly ran over a group of young
Pi-Edes, crouched.down in a piflion thicket.  The little savages fixed
an unwinking gaze upon me, but never stirred or spoke, their Indian
nature forbidding expression either of surprise, pleasure or fear at
sight of me. It is doubtful if they felt either.  A little beyond I saw
their mother, or older sister, gathering grass-seeds-the sumumer work
of these squaws-naked as new-created Eve, but hardly so handsome
as Milton paints our great mother.  By her lay her wicker-basket,
which she had dropped at my approach, to retreat behind the bush,




314


WESTERN WILDS.


whether from  fear or modesty was hard to say.     At dark I
reached Pipe Springs, where is a ranche kept by Bishop Windsor and
one of his families.  I found the Bishop a good landlord, and chatty,
agreeable companion. The spring from which the place takes its
name sends down a large stream of cold, clear water, which the Bishop
leads in stone troughs through his houses, using one of them for a
cheese factory. He milks eighty cows, and makes the business a
splendid success. All this section is rich in. pasture, but has so little
arable land that most of the few inhabitants have to import their
flour, paying for it in butter and cheese. Even with this large stream
the Bishop can cultivate but fifteen acres, the porous, sandy soil requiring five times as much irrigation as the land around Salt Lake
City. The place is just outside the rim of the Great Basin, and the
country about of the same level as that within. From the foot of the
mountain range along which we travel the surface slopes a very little
toward the Colorado, but near that river rises again to a height above
that along the road.
Thence the next afternoon I traversed a sandy desert for twenty-five
miles, reached the first pool and took supper, then rode nine miles
further by dark, and made a "dry camp" in a low, grassy valley between two wooded hills. Thence I reached Gould's Ranche (ten
miles) in time for a late breakfast and another hot argument on politics. The Church was then straining every nerve to get Utah admitted as a State, the Gentiles fighting the proposition with the bitterness of desperation, and all Southern Utah was hot over the
matter.
That day I mistook the road, but did not regret my error when it
led me to the beautiful hamlet of Virgin City. The neat, white adobe
houses were almost hidden in forests of peach, fig, apple, and mul* berry trees; the climate rivaled that of Southern California, and damSons, apricots, and pears also abounded. All that part of Mormondom
south of the rim of the Great Basin is called Dixie, and produces cotton, wine and figs. And here I first began to be conscious of the
oddity of my dress.  At Defiance, to avoid being too conspicuous
among the Indians, I had dressed in a buckskin suit, with spangled
Mexican jacket, stout moccasins handsomely worked, beaded scarf,
and flowered calico head-wrap; so, at a distance, I was every-where
taken for an Indian. Marriage with Indian women is a strong point
in the religion of these Southern Mormons, and the men were delighted with my description of the grace, beauty, and general desirableness of Navajo girls, as they expect to form a close alliance with




A STARTLING INTERVIEW.


315


that tribe. Jacob Hamlin had visited all the tribes in Northern
Arizona, making treaties between the Indians and the Church.
My next journey was to Toquerville, where I stopped with Bishop
Isaac C. Haight, another leader in the Mountain Meadow Massacre,
and a prominent Mormon. Ripe figs, just plucked from the tree,
formed part of our dessert.  The narrow valley is very fertile; all
around are yellow hills and red deserts.  A leisurely journey of a
day brought me thence to Kanarra, in the rim of the Great Basin.
In the south end of town the water flows towards the Colorado; in
the north end into the Basin. There I had my first sickness on the
trip, as did my horse. We had stood adversity; prosperity ruined us.
I indulged too freely in fruit, and he in Lucerne hay. There was no
doctor in town, so I worried it through on hot ginger and "Dixie
wine;" in three days was able to ride, and proceeded by easy stages
to Parowan, in Iron County. But six hundred miles through the
Indian country had worn out my horse, and on the 16th instant I
" ranched him" twenty miles south of Beaver, and set out for that
place in the wagon of a Mormon farmer.   Some five miles on the
road-when we were on the Beaver " divide "-a cold rain set in and
continued for four hours, changing to something very near sleet. The
Mormon family and myself suffered greatly with cold. The seasons
at Beaver are very late, and wheat harvest does not begin till in
August. Little Salt Lake lay a few miles west of our route, on the
"divide."  Having passed the ridge, I walked down the eight-mile
slope to Beaver, which I reached at dark, and was soon warm and
happy in the house of a hospitable Gentile.
Beaver had been revolutionized by the development of mines.
Gentiles were to be seen every-where, and a military post had been
established near town. Thence by stage it was two hundred and fifty
miles to "Zion;" and I was pleased to recognize, in the first driver,
my old friend Will Kimball, who drove a team across the Plains in.
the train with me in 1868. Kimball's father was one of the many
arrested the previous winter on charges relating to the conduct of the
Mormon militia in the rebellion of 1857, but was released with a
hundred and twenty others, when the Supreme Court reversed Judge
Mcean's rulings. In the progress of Utah affairs, nearly all of the
family left by old Heber Kimball have become pretty good Gentiles.
This seems to be the course of all such delusions which do not end in
blood.
I halted for a day's rest at Fillmore, the old Territorial capital,
a hundred and seventy-five miles south-west of Salt Lake, and quite a




316


WESTERN WILDS.


beautiful town.  Several wealthy Mormons reside here, in elegant
brick and stone houses, and the place is old enough for all the shade
trees and shrubbery to have attained a good growth. Some thirty
miles west of Fillmore is a remarkable mountain peak, or rather
round heap of cinders and lava, five hundred feet high. It is broken
square across by a gulch with almost perpendicular sides, at the bottom
of which is a spring that is coated with ice around the edges for eleven
months in the year. The altitude is no higher than that of Fillmore,
but the sun never shines in the gorge, and snow lies on the inner slopes
all the year.
Thence two days' slow staging brought me to "Zion," which I
leached on the evening of July 21st, exactly four months from the
day I left St. Louis for a tour through the Southern Territories. In
that time I had traveled fourteen hundred miles by rail, six hundred
by stage, three hundred by military wagon, two hundred on foot, and
six hundred on horseback-at a total cost of $535. I reached "Zion"
in splendid health, but complete disguise, if I am to judge from the
conduct of my friends, many of whom passed me on the street without
a nod, or with only a slight look of curiosity, as if some old and halfforgotten memory were stirred by sight of a face that "had a sort o'
familiar look." However, after a bath in the warm springs, getting
off my buckskin pantaloons, spangled Mexican jacket, and Navajo
scarf, and donning a new summer suit, my fingers received once more
the wonted squeeze, and once more I began to feel very like a Christian.
It was on this journey through Southern Utah, and after my arrival
in "Zion," that I heard narrated the personal experiences which are
combined in the three succeeding chapters.


a




CHAPTER XX.


THE FAIR APOSTATE.
MERRILY rang the bells of --      Church, Herefordshire, in the
merry month of May, 1847; for Nixy James, the belle of the hamlet,
was that day to be married to Elwood Briarly, the sturdiest young
yeoman on all the country side. The elder James and Elwood's father
had grown from childhood together: intimate companions and fierce
rivals for the lead among the village politicians, partners in public
sports and at the village tavern, but never, by any possibility, on the
same side of any exciting question.  Thomas James, cobbler, was
often heard to declare that Yeoman Briarly would "contradict for
contradiction's sake-he'd argefy wi' t' clock on t' church steeple,
rather than go wi'out argefying;" while the yeoman, on his part, insisted that James "was aye runnin' after every dashed new-fangled
notion that come along." He couldn't see why simple folk like us
couldn't be content wi' t' old church and t' old laws, and not take up
wi' every outlanguaged kickshaw from France or 'Merica or other
foreign parts."  For his part, give him the British Constitution.
Nay, the difference was in the. blood; for James' great-grandfather
was a hot adherent of the Prince of Orange, while the Briarlys had
stood by the " Lord's Anointed," and remained zealous Jacobites even
down to the coming in of the House of Brunswick.  They held to
legitimacy long after Church, Lords, and Commons had forgotten it;
but the James' had ever three bogies:. a papist king, an Irish rising
and a French invasion. Now it so happens that a whole people can
not always be scared into submission by Irish risings and French invasions; and so, by and by, new and perplexing questions arose, and
certain pestilent fellows began to talk about "more liberty," and
"household suffrage," and the "rights of the people."  It was an extraordinary proceeding on their part, and Yeoman Briarly stoutly protested no good could come of it; but, in spite of him, he would have
told you the James' family and all their adherents went crazy.  But
it never shook him. Oh, no; he planted himself firmly on the Constitution, and defied the world to move; and, when the others became
Chartists, he declared, with great positiveness, over his pipe in the village ale-house, what Parliament ought to do to stop this sort of thing.
(317)




318


WESTERN WILDS.


But in despite of all this contention, the young people persisted in
loving each other almost from the start, and at last the blood of the
Old Radical and the Old Conservative were to be united. And all
this time. there was growing up in an obscure village across the sea, an
ignorant, awkward youth, who talked through his nose, and told plausible fibs as naturally as he breathed, whose career was to strangely
affect the blood of the Briarlys and James'. Across the sea an institution was born which was to change the current of all these simple
lives in a way the wisest little dreamed of.
The ceremony was ended, the shoe was thrown, the village maidens
strung garlands for the bride; there was the feast, the dance, and all
the simple pleasantry of the middle class of English farmers. One
year Elwood Briarly rejoiced in the society of his young wife-one
year of continued courtship. Then came a season of trial, happily
ended, said the nurse and doctor; and an infant daughter was laid in
the arms of the proud father. A perfect little manikin it was, with
the orthodox creases in its perfect little feet, and all the orthodox lines
on its perfect little face, by which wise matrons so infallibly fix the
resemblance to either parent: a precious little life wrapped up in a
perfect little anatomy. But the primal curse still rests, even on the
head of the hardy English woman. The weight of the precious fruit
broke the parent stem, and the life of the plant exhaled in the sweetness of the opening flower. Nixie Briarly only saw that her babe had
started well in this world, then bade her weeping husband good-bye,
and fell asleep.
To him it seemed that all which macde life worth having was gone.
His had been no sudden affection; for long years Nixie had been
central to all his plans, and now there seemed nothing worth exertion. His daughter-he could scarcely say at first that he loved herstrange pain!  She seemed to him almost as a living reproach.
Months passed, and it was remarked that he was "slack; " his hand
had lost its cunning, and words of pity were heard. Months again
passed, and it was remarked that he weun often to the village alehouse, and this time the word of pity was accompanied with an
ominous shake of the head. But the current of common life flowed on
too fast for others for them to turn aside to cheer him. Old yeomen,
on their way home from church, leaned over the fence to look at the
little farm he held on lease; and while you might have thought them
pondering on the preacher's words, the real thought behind those
heavy, unexpressive eyes was, "When will it be to lease?"  At the
91e-house he sat apart, a moody man; and it was surprising how




THE FAIR APOSTATE.


319


soon his old companions learned to do without him, and he dropped
into the ranks of the half-forgotten. All at once it began to be
whispered that Elwood Briarly was drinking a great deal; and then
that he was drinking altogether too much, and very soon after, that
he was a drunkard, and in an amazingly short space of time that he
was an abandoned drunkard, and that his late lease was vacated and
the farm to be relet. And so it was that when his little Marian was
only three years old, she was taken home to grandfather James, and
Elwood Briarly plunged down, down, down along the course of those
given over to the national vice of Free (and "Merrie") England.
Counted as already dead by those nearest him, he became a common laborer for the means of gratifying his appetite. His sorrow
had yielded to time, but now habit dragged him down. When reason
asserted her sway he struggled to his feet for a few days or weeks,
then fell again, and each time deeper than before. And now his
habits and associates had changed his original nature. At the church
or social gathering he was never seen; his only recreation worth the.
name was at the workingman's club; there lie easily learned to criticise every body but himself, and to blame every one for his troubles,
the government most of all. The genial young farmer had become
first a snarling critic, then a radical, a cynic, a misanthrope.
Again he struggled to his feet, and in one of his sober moods, on a
calm Sabbath afternoon, started with his little girl for a stroll upon
the village common. His attention was attracted by a small group
of people who had gathered around a rude stand, extemporized by
piling a few stones together. On this stood a man of peculiar appearance, with'what Briarly thought an unpleasant nasal tone, and a
complexion that was certainly not English. "It's one o' them newfangled preachers from America," said a neighbor, as he came up; and
for want of some better amusemept, he decided to wait and listen. There
was a general air of critical indifference in the small audience, idle
and seeking only entertainment as they were; but they were respectful.
The preacher seemed to fix his eye on Briarly as he pronounced his text:
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to
all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."JAMES i: 5. Slowly repeating the text, as if to fix the meaning
of each word, the missionary cast a glance over his congregation. In
that sweeping inspection he had noted those whom he would most
likely reach.
" My friends, brethren and sisters, all; this means you. It don't
mean the Pope of Rome is to have all wisdom. It don't mean His




320


WESTERN WILDS.


Grace the Archbishop. It means that you are to know for yourselves, and not for or by another. It means that you are to receive a
witness from God himself, and know of a surety whether this doctrine
is true. It is not for the rich alone, or the learned; a burden is
laid upon me to open the Gospel to the poor and ignorant, to help
those who need it, to cheer the sorrowful, to lift up the lowly, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord," and again his glance fell
upon Briarly. The latter was powerfully impressed. He had lost
his old friends. He longed for sympathy. If any man could promise him something better, that man was sure of a favorable hearing.
The, preacher continued: "You have priests who tell you that there is
no more revelation, that the volume of God's word is closed. For
eighteen hundred years the Christian world has received no message
from the Almighty: the heavens have been shut up, the Lord has not
spoken, there has been no prophet to inquire of the Lord. Where is
their authority to say this?  Where is it written in this book that
prophecy shall cease? Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,
and were saved; but the bread my fathers ate is not sufficient for me.
I would know God for myself. Go ask your priests for a witness of
their mission. They can not show it. Eighteen hundred years ago,
they say, God spoke; eighteen hundred years ago He loved His
people, and led them by revelation. But now the canon is full; the
world is wise enough to do without the daily word of God, and there
is no longer a voice from the Most High to guide us! What! Is
God dead? Is there less need of a living oracle now than there was
eighteen hundred years ago? Or is the world so pure that a prophet
has no work to do? Do all men acknowledge God, and worship him,
and is there no unbelief that God should refuse us a witness? No,
my friends, I'll tell you why it is."
The speaker had warmed into something like eloquence. His audience were impressed, and the nasal tone which at first affected their
English ears unpleasantly, seemed to have vanished.
"It is because they rejected God's plan. They would not have a
continuous chain of revelation. They have set up churches in which
there are no prophets nor apostles; they have not the gifts of the
apostolic church, and the Holy Spirit is not with them; they have
the form of godliness, but deny the power. Should any one say
to them that God had sent a prophet, they would cry out against him.
But, my friends, God is not dead. The heavens are not brass to those
who seek the truth. God, who so loved the world that he sent his Son
to save it, loves us as much as he did the people who lived eighteen hui



THE FAIR APOSTATE.


321


dred years ago, and has sent us a messenger. As he spoke to the saints of
the former days so has he spoken to the Latter-day Saints, and all who
will may know for themselves that this message is from   God. In
America a prophet has been called; the word of God has whispered
out of the dust, as foretold by Isaiah, and once more communication
is restored between God andman."
The speaker then recited the story of Joseph Smith, his conversion
and calling, his mission and martyrdom, as foretold by all the prophets;
and supported his doctrine by an array of Scripture texts that astonished and fairly overwhelmed his simple hearers. Their experience
had left them unprepared for any thing of this sort. All their lives
they had heard the letter of the Scriptures distorted in the petty warfare between the sects; great principles they did not comprehend, and,
to come to the point, there was no reason why prophets and apostles
should not walk the earth now as well as in former times. The missionary's argument on this point was to them unanswerable: if there
was wickedness and unbelief in ancient times, so there was now; if
men needed a living witness then, much more did they now, when so
many claimed to be messengers from God, and all differed as to His
nature and government. No text in the Bible said that prophets should
cease, while scores of texts implied that He would not leave the earth
without an infallible guide.
Elwood Briarly was powerfully impressed. He was in the Slough
of Despond, and the missionary brought hope; he was disgusted with
all about him, and here was a chance for a new life. Next day he
was surprised by a visit from the Mormon preacher. The latter was
totally unlike the parish priest. He did not stand off and preach down
at the poor outcast; he took a farming tool and worked beside him;
aye, did task for task with him, and talked only in the intervals of work.
He, too, had known poverty and disgrace; he, too, had been an unfortunate and an outcast; he had not walked in silver slippers, and how
mightily did he affect these simple people. From house to house he
went, resolving doubts, urging proof texts, preaching and debating; and
sitting by their humble firesides of an evening, he sang with unction:
"The Spirit of God like a fire is burning,
The latter-day glory begins to come forth;
The visions and blessings of old are returning;
The angels are coming to visit the earth.
We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven,
Hosanna, hosanna, to God and the Lamb I
Let glory to them in the highest be given,
Henceforth and forever, amen and amen!"
21




322


WESTERN WILDS.


What wonder that he prevailed mightily among these simple people.
What wonder that the cold, barren, carefully prepared homilies of the
parish priest were swept aside! The emotional faith of the speaker
went to the hearer's soul.  It was no cold, intellectual reasoning; it
was warm, robust feeling, and as a natural consequence believers grew
and multiplied. In less than one month from that Sunday, Elwood
Briarly, his father-in-law James, and a dozen of their neighbors were
baptized into the Mormon Church, and eager to set out for "Zion."
But between them and Salt Lake City intervened many months of
work for the cause. And now the whole aim     of their lives was
changed. Preaching and working, at home or abroad, all was for the
Church; their talk was of '( visions and dreams," "the ministering of
angels," "tongues and the interpretation of tongues," "healings and
miracles."  And so it was, that by the opening months of 1856, this
little band of Saints was ready for the long journey to "Zion."
Old Man James was beside himself with joy at thought that all his
dreams were soon to be realized; that Brotherhood of Man, that freedom he had vainly sought in Chartism, was to be realized in the Rocky
Mountains, where God's people were to live under the mild rule of
prophets and apostles. Such an idea captivated thousands of young
Englishmen. To them, Utah was a land where all legal hardships
were to be cured, and all men to be equal; and the spirit of brotherhood
among the British saints at this time, to which all observers bear witness, they thought only a foretaste of the perfect oneness in Christ
which was to prevail in Utah. In this spirit our friends gathered to
Liverpool, where it was announced, through the columns of the Millennial Star, that God, by His servant Brigham, had devised a cheaper
and better way of reaching Utah; the Saints were to travel from the
frontiers on foot, and take their necessary baggage on hand-carts.
But what can shake a fervent and fooling faith? Without a murmur
of dissent the waiting hundreds crowded on the vessel chartered by
the Mormon agents, and, grouped on the deck as the vessel started on
their way, they sang with a tone that resounded o'er the waves:
"Oh, my native land, I love thee;
All thy scenes I love them well;
Friends, connections, happy country, +
Can I bid you all farewell?
Can I leave thee,
Far in distant lands to dwell?
Home, thy joys are passing lovely,
Joys no stranger heart can tell;




THE FAIR APOSTA TE.


323


Happy home, 'tis sure I love thee,
Can I-can I-say 'Farewell?'
Can I leave thee,
Far in distant lands to dwell?
"Yes, I hasten from you gladly,
From the scenes I love so well;
Far away, ye billows, bear me;
Lovely native land, farewell!
Pleased I leave thee,
Far in distant lands to dwell.
"Bear me on, thou restless ocean,
Let the winds my canvas swell;
Heaves my heart with warm emotion,
While I go far hence to dwell,
Glad I bid thee,
Native land, farewell, farewell."
On ship-board the discipline was perfect. The new converts were
distributed in quorums, over each an elder, and over all a trustee or
apostle, insuring mutual respect and cleanliness; and in this order the
emigrants traveled all the way to Iowa City, their outfitting point for
the plains. It was there learned that over two thousand of the poorer
and middle class of converts had that year left Europe, all of whom
were to continue the journey from this point with hand-carts. But
precious time was lost. The Mormon agent had neglected to provide
the carts; they were now hastily constructed of imperfectly seasoned
wood, and the whole party set out joyfully late in July, and were soon
strung along the route thence to the Missouri River. The first
five hundred got an early start, and being largely composed of young
and strong men, entered Salt Lake Valley just as the first snow of the
season was falling. But our friends, with their companions, found
themselves the second week in August just prepared to start from the
Missouri. Fanatical as they were, some of them shrank from making
the attempt so late in the season. The division contained five hundred persons: a hundred and twenty stout men, three hundred women,
and children old enough to walk, and seventy babies to be carried by
their mothers or hauled upon the carts-this party starting to traverse
eleven hundred miles of mountain and desert in the closing months of
the season! Totally ignorant of the country and climate, the converts
were eager to go on to " Zion," but there were four of the leaders who
had been to the valley, and others at Florence attending to the emigration. Incredible as it may appear, all these urged them on but one;
Levi Savage used his common sense and knowledge of the country,
but was rebuked by the elders, who prophesied, in the name of Israels




324                        WESTERN WILDS.
God, that not a flake of snow should fall upon them.      C You will hear
of storms to the right and to the left, but a way will be opened for
you," Each hundred was then put under charge of a captain; to each
hundred there were five round tents, twenty persons to a tent; twenty
hand-carts, one to five persons, aid one " prairie schooner" drawn by
three yoke of oxen, to haul the tents and provisions. All the clothing
and bedding, seventeen pounds to each person, and all the cooking
utensils, were upon the hand-carts, besides a hundred pound sack of flour
to each. Thus equipped, rested by the delay and " strong in the pxomise
of the Lord by the mouth of His elder," the second division set out
from the Missouri the 18th of August, singing in cheerful concert:
"A church without a prophet is not the church for me;
It has no head to lead it, in it I would not be;
But I've a church not built by man,
Cut from the mountain without hand,
A church with gifts and blessings, oh, that's the church for me,
Oh, that's the church for me, oh, that's the church for me.
"The God that others worship is not the God for me;
He has no parts nor body, and can not hear nor see;
'But I've a God that lives above,
A God of Power and of Love,
A God of Revelation, oh, that's the God for me.
"A church without apostles is not the church for me;
It's like a ship dismasted afloat upon the sea;
But I've a church that's always led
By the twelve stars around its head,
A church with good foundations, oh, that's the church for me.
"The hope that Gentiles cherish is not the hope for me,
It has no hope for knowledge, far from it I would be;
But I've a hope that will not fail,
That reaches safe within the vail,
Which hope is like an anchor, oh, that's the hope for me."
But neither hope nor faith changed the harsh climate of the high
plains and wind-swept plateaus; and seven weeks of travel left our
friends still four hundred miles from "Zion," in the heart of the high
Rockies, almost out of provisions, worn down, sick, apparently forgotten of God and abandoned by man. It was then the inborn nobleness of the English race shone out. Men toiled on day after day,
hauling and even carrying women and          children, wading    ice-cold
streams with the feeble in their arms, in many cases carrying their'
little children in the morning and themselves dying before night.
Fainting fathers took the scant rations from their lips and fed their
crying children; mothers carried their babes till they sank exhausted
in the snow, and young men nerved themselves to suffer every thing




THE FAIR APOSTATE.


326


for those they loved. Briarly had never known how much he loved
his little Marian till then. 'Daily the image of her mother grew in
her face, and hourly he felt the agony of death lest he should leave
her corpse in the wilderness. At times pushing his hand-cart with
her weight added to his regular load; at times wading the cold mount
ain streams with her clasped to his bosom, and yet again assisting
others whose husbands or fathers had died on the way, he showed
that a false faith had not yet corrupted nature. Day after day the


" WHOSE EXISTENCE FROM DECEMBER TILL MAY IS ORGANIZED FAMINE AND MISERY."
train struggled on in silence and sorrow, and every morning saw from
one to ten of their number cold in death. Daily the survivors grew
weaker from exposure and insufficient food: old men died as easily as
a lamp goes out when the oil is exhausted; women died as a child
goes to sleep; young men died sitting by the camp-fire, with their
scant rations in their mouths. Still the survivors pressed on, though
every day more slowly: by day pierced by the keen winds, or happily
sheltered a little by the mountain pines; by night shivering and moaning in a miserable sleep, cheered only by the long drawn and melancholy howl of the coyote.


4




326


WESTERN WILDS.


The regular winter storms struck them at Rocky Ridge, but not
until the first relief company from Salt Lake City had reached them.
In their worst extremity some had even accepted charity from the
wretched Goshoots, whose existence from December till May is organized famine and misery. But help came too late for one of our
friends. Old Man James had borne up long and well. The day the first
storm of winter came he sank by the wayside with scores of others.
John Chislett, commander of this hundred, took off his own blanket
and wrapped it around his older and weaker brother; and a few
hours later the relief party brought him into camp. They warmed
and chafed his cold limbs, and pressed food upon him; but his
thoughts were far away. He babbled of green fields, and the hawthorn
along the English lanes; of the village ale-house and the Chartist's
Club, of his little Nixie, still a child, as he thought. This recalled his
later experience, and starting up, he cried: "My curse, my eternal
curse on those who brought us from our English home;" then fell
back with glazing eye and stiffening jaw.
The Old Radical had found the Brotherhood of Man at last.
But Brigham's kingdom had lost a subject.
While fanaticism was corrupting fresh young English hearts, the
harsh attrition of rural life in the West was wearing another hero
into shape. But who would have chosen Willie Manson for a hero
that spring afternoon?-his face covered with dust, through which
the tears were washing little tracks; his feet bare, and his head half
covered with a dilapidated straw hat. He had but dim recollections
of a tall and kindly man who spoke to him as " my boy;" since then his
"legal guardians " had made him more familiar with the phrase, "that
wretched Young one," and the neighbors' children had nicknamed
him "Binder," in allusion to the legal tie which relegated him to the
authority of his master.  How have they wasted their time-those
poets who write of "innocent childhood? "  Cruelty is bound up in
the heart of a child, and is manifested against the helpless of his own.
age. If you do not believe it, watch a group of school children, when
a pauper child, or a "bound boy " or girl is first sent among them.
But to-day Willie Manson had received blows as well as harsh
words, and as he came across the fields on his errand, a glance westward showed him a wide expanse of open country; and all at once
arose that vague longing which appears to have moved our race ever
since the first Aryan turned towards sunset.  Obeying a wild impulse-half anger and half a formed desire to run away-the boy fled




THE FAIR APOSTATE.


327


swiftly across the fields till he reached the high road; then he stopped,
and, boy-like, with the reaction came this thought: " Oh, won't I catch
it, though, when I get home?"  Left to hinqself, the thirteen-year-old
child would, of course, have gone back, taken his punishment, and
perhaps sunk into a "white slave," perhaps taken a later occasion to
fly. But fate would have it otherwise. As he pondered, there came
down the road a high "prairie schooner," drawn by four horses;
within the neat white cover sat a cheery looking woman who held the
reins, while behind came two men driving loose cattle. They nodded
and smiled in a way that warmed the heart of the forlorn orphan; but
the next minute turned in haste to head off their cattle, who had
broken into a wood lot and were stampeding for wild freedom. With
a natural wish to please, and glad of some change, the barefooted boy
ran after the cattle, and, by his knowledge of the locality, assisted
greatly in getting them past' the next open piece of timber. They
thanked him heartily, and pressed a silver dime upon him, then bade
him good-bye; but, to their surprise, when they camped that evening
on the banks of the Wabash, the boy was there.  Reluctantly the
"movers" consented to his remaining for the night, and in the morning, fearing the consequences to themselves of " harboring a runaway,"
they sent him back. But to their amazement, when the swing ferry
had landed them on the west bank, and they were toiling up the western bluff, the boy climbed out of the rear of the wagon-box and begged to go on with them. His readiness to help had pleased the men,
and now something in his pleading face touched the weary but still
cheerful woman.
"Isn't he like our Johnnie was? And at the age we lost him" —
and she took him into her great motherly heart at once. So, with
many misgivings, the head of the family consented to his accompanying them. But it might have been noticed that he made a very long
drive that day, and camped at a distance. from any dwelling; that he
managed to keep Willie very busy if any settler halted to chat with
the "movers," and that he pressed upon him a hat very different in
appearance from that he had worn. And so it was that in a few days
Willie felt as if he had never known other friends than these; that
the old life as a "bound boy" was a dream, and that he was to begin
a new life away in the West.
By this time they had emerged into what seemed a vast field without a fence, where, for hours, they jogged on over the grand prairie
without sight of tree or house. They crossed the Elibarras, the Okaw
and other streams, threaded their bordering groves, and were out again




328


WESTERN WILDS.


upon the prairies, then but thinly settled, of central Illinois. Beyond,
they descended the gently rolling hills, crossed the great river, and in
the early summer entered upon the rolling plains and wooded vales of
Iowa-and still on and on. To Willie each new day brought surprise
that the world was so big; but still at evening the man replied to
his wife's question: "I want to get out where I can have my pick.
Reckon a hundred miles or so west of Iowa City '11 suit me."
At last the pioneer announced that "this 'ere district looked new
enough, and about the right thing," and at noon of a scorching July
day they made camp for the last time. Willie had taken the bucket,
and was returning from the creek near by with water, when suddenly
there came in view the most amazing caravan he had ever looked
upon.  For a mile along the dim wagon track there straggled in
strange array men, women, and children, all panting and sweating
under the hot sky of an Iowa July noon.  Here and there were
heavy wagons drawn by oxen; but most of the vehicles were rude
carts with shafts attached, and in those shafts-how could the little
American believe his eyes? -were actually women and men, not exactly harnessed like brute beasts, but pushing or pulling at the heavy
loads. Dripping with sweat and begrimed with dust, all ages and
sexes still seemed eager to press on; little children ran beside the
carts, while babies slumbered on the piles of bedding, or hung upon
the breasts of bronzed and weary mothers. Behind came the more
weary, and with them a man who appeared to be in command, urging
them on; and among the last came a man who pushed a cart before
him and pulled another from behind, while a little girl walked beside
himn crying to ride.
"What's the matter, little girl?" said the boy, finding his tongue at
last. The child hushed on the instant, but still lingered as if wanting
to talk.
"Where are you going, little girl? "
" To Zion-to build up the kingdom of God."
The boy was positively frightened. What could this strange little
creature mean. But before he could ask, she whimpered: " Oh, I am
so tired."
This was something Willie could understand very well; and it was
not half so bad to his mind as the other, for, like most children who
have been under severe authority, he literally "feared God." To
him any other prospect was more pleasant than going to the " kingdom," as he understood it. But while he gazed at the little one, and
in his boyish way wondered and speculated, the advance of the caval



TEE FAIR APOSTATE.


329


cade had halted for midday at the creek; and he followed with the
weary child, who seemed all at once to have acquired great confidence
in him. Meanwhile the pioneer had been down to talk with the party,
and Willie had to hid his little acquaintance good-bye and hurry back.
"And who are they, any how?" said the wife.
"Oh, a set of d-d tool Mormons," replied the matter-of-fact
Hoosier-" they say they're a goin' to Zion.  More likely goin' to
the devil, startin' out the way they are."
But Willie had in mind his little friend of an hour, and, after much
pondering, concluded that she must be a " bound girl" as he had been
a "bound boy," and that some harsh master was taking her away from
home; so, with the good woman's permission, he gathered up some
delicacies left from their dinner, and ran down to offer them to the
little girl. He listened to the talk of the elders, but it was a strange
jargon to him; there was so much about "wicked Babylon," and
"God's wrath," and "the last days," that he was frightened again,
and could hardly say whether he was glad or sorry when the cpol of
the day came on and the strange party set out again. But the vision
remained long in his memory; and months after he astonished his
patron by suddenly asking: "Who are Mormons, anyhow? and why
don't they use teams just like folks?"
A year passed, and the boy was again moving westward. A year
had done wonders in strengthening his body; he was already known
as a skillful driver, and when a train set out to haul provisions to the
army in the mountains, he was promoted to the management of "one
span" and a "light outfit."  "Three span outfits," on such a route as
that, were reserved for men. Need I recount the incidents of that disastrous autumn and winter of suffering? Our army, marching carelessly and without a thought of resistance, allowed the Mormon troops
to run off their stock, and render them helpless on the inhospitable
plains of Bridger. There the train to which Willie was attached found
them in the dead of winter, and but for this timely arrival they must
have suffered for food. The winter dragged on in misery and exposure; but fortune, which had denied our little hero almost every
thing else, had at least given him a rugged constitution, and he lived
through a season when strong men drooped and died. When spring
had dissolved the snow banks from the Wasatch passes, and "King
Buchanan had come to his senses," as Mormon history expresses it,
peace was made, and the army entered the Territory, traversed Salt
Lake City, and was located at Camp Floyd.
And now came the era that was to decide our young hero's future;




330


WESTERN WILDS.


for Camp Floyd presented extraordinary facilities for the ruin of character, and Willie was at that period which most often decides one's destiny for time —perhaps for eternity. With the army, or following close
after it, came an array of camp-followers outnumbering the soldiers
three to one.  Government contracts were given out with a lavish
hand, and money
that was easily
got was lavishly
spent. Among
the superiors,
there was hightoned robbery of
the Government
and the Indians;
among the inferiors, gambling
a n d quarreling,
and every-where
rioting a~nd fatal
"' accidents." The
revolver was in
frequent use;
renegade young
Mormons crowded the camp, and
the scum of the
mountains made
it their rendezvous.  For two
years o u r hero
was swept along
by the tide. He
was by turns
teamster, commissary cl er k,
SCENES ON THE COLORADO PLATEAU.     a n d merchant's
clerk; but still preserved enough of nature's nobility to make him,
in his quiet moments, loathe the life around him, and long for a
purer atmosphere. Gentile merchants had opened stores in the city,
and with a sudden impulse he set out one morning to ride there
and seek a position. But the life he had lately led had not been




THE FAIR APOSTATE.                     331
without effects. Exposure and over-exertion when at work, and dissipation instead of relaxation when at leisure, can not long be borne even
in the stimulating air of Utah. He felt every hour of his progress a
growing lassitude; and had barely entered the outskirts of the
city, when he fell from his horse in a paroxysm of that dread
disease, mountain fever. When he opened his eyes in his first
lucid moment, ten days after, he was amazed at what he thought
a familiar face near his pillow. He gazed long and earnestly, and at
last, despite all the changes of four years, recognized the little girl he
had last seen on the banks of the Boyer, in Iowa.




CHAPTER XXI.


THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.
IT was in full Tabernacle, in the early autumn of 1856. The reign
of lust and fanaticism, known in Utah as the " Reformation," had not
ended; and at every meeting fresh schemes were projected to bind the
Mormons more thoroughly into a pliable mass, which might be "even
as a tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood." Every Saint
had been required to confess the minutest details of his past life; all
these were written down, signed by the party, and thousands of them
filed away by Brigham Young. The ward teachers had reported every case of real or supposed heresy; the accused had been severely
catechised, and the incorrigible driven from the Territory-or worse.
A   grand  "experience meeting" was now         in  progress.   Brigham
had pronounced one of his fiercely denunciatory and sweeping sermons, and three thousand Saints, wrought up to the highest pitch of
fanaticism, were singing the inspiring national hymn of the Mormon
theocracy:
" In thy mountain retreat
God shall strengthen thy feet,
On the necks of thy foes shalt thou tread;
And their silver and gold,
As the prophets have told,
Shall be brought to adorn thy fair head.
Oh, Zion, dear Zion, home of the free,
Soon thy towers will shine with a splendor divine,
And eternal thy glories shall be.
" Here our voices we'll raise,
And we'll sing to thy praise,
Sacred home of the prophets of God!
Thy deliverance is nigh,
Thy oppressors shall die,
And the Gentiles shall bow 'neath thy rod.
"Oh, Zion, dear Zion, home of the free!
In thy temples we'll bend, all thy rights we'll defend,
And our homes shall be ever with thee."
Into this assembly came Joseph A. Young, second son of the
(332)




THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.


333


Prophet, just returned from a two years' mission in England, and announced that two divisions of the hand-cart emigrants were on the
plains, and in danger of starvation. Then Brigham roused himself,
and became, in the estimation of his people, indeed "The Lion of the
Lord."  Without giving his son a day's rest, he started him at once
on the retutrn. with authority to press all the wagons and available
bedding and provisions in the settlements he passed through.  The
people contributed gladly, and in all the assemblies of the Saints prayers were continually offered that God would stay the storms of winter; but instead thereof, as though heaven would rebuke the presumptuous, the storms of 1856 (it is the testimony of all mountaineers) came on earlier and with more severity than for many years before or since. The poor emigrants were brought in only when onefifth of their number had died of cold and starvation, and as many
more been maimed in various degrees. Among the fortunate few were
Elwood Briarly and his little Marian, and their kinsman, young
Thomas James.
The arrival of the sufferers only added to the prevailing madness.
"Surely," said fanaticism, "God is angry with His people, or His
promise to temper the winds would have held good;" and in an
amazingly short space of time most of the new-comers were as insane
as the rest-for, indeed, it did seem that at that time all Utah was pervaded by an epidemic madness. Jedediah Grant and Orson Hyde
ranged the Territory, breathing out threats against dissenters, and
teaching bloody doctrines in figures of speech. The New Testament
was laid aside; Hebraic precedents only were cited: Phinehas, who
killed his brother and the Midianitish woman; Jael, who slew the
heathen; the king who massacred idolaters, and the priest who
hewed the transgressor in pieces before the Lord. "The time is nigh
at hand," said Grant, "when we will walk up and down these streets
with the old broadsword and say, 'Are you for God?'-and whoever
is not will be hewn down!" Marrying and giving in marriage went
on constantly, as fast as the ordained officials could put the Saints
through the Endowment House ceremonies proper to " plural marriage."  Every eligible woman in the Teiritory was appropriated, and
girls of twelve and fourteen years were " sealed" to old elders. In one
month after he entered the city, in six months after he was an honest
citizen of Christian and monogamous England, Elwood Briarly was
the "husband" of two girls who came with him in the hand-cart
company.
Where now were the lofty ideals with which the English Saints had




334


WESTERN WILDS.


left home? The old Radical who dared all for greater freedom, was
food for the wolves in the Rocky Mountains. The young Radical who.sought a land where men were free in Christ, was now the subject of
the worst despotism on earth.  The maidens who "fled from Babylon
because of its corruptions," were prostitutes in the name of high.
heaven; and the Saxon yeoman, who boasted that "the Briarlys
served no man and feared no officer," was now the slave of lust and of
Brigham, and a virtual criminal by the laws of his adopted country.
That brotherly communion of the Saints, which had so warmed their
hearts in old England, they were never to realize again in Utah;
the British elders, who had labored long to build up the Church abroad,
soon found they had sold themselves for naught, but could not be redeemed even at a great price. Many of them mourned secretly for
years, and, when deliverance came, were too much broken in spirit to
avail themselves of it. To them Mormonism has proved the loss of all
honorable ambition for this world, and only the skeptic's hope for the
next.
The madness of the " Reformation " wore itself out, and the plentiful harvest of 1857 made Utah prosperous. On "Pioneers' Day,"
July 24th, thousands of Saints were joyously celebrating the settlement
of the country in Cottonwood Caifon, when suddenly arrived two elders from the States, with the announcement that President Buchanan
had removed Brigham from the Governorship, and ordered the army
to Utah.  Brigham's brow darkened as he said: " When we reached
here I said, if the devils would only give me ten years, I'd be ready for
them; they've taken me at my word, and I am ready."  The people
were called together, and a defensive war declared. All Utah was
soon in a buzz of warlike preparation. Briarly bid his wives goodbye, shook their two right hands and kissed their four lips, and was
off for Echo Caflon with two thousand armed Saints, to drive the Gentile army from the borders of Zion.  They were wonderfully successful. The little brigade, under command of Colonel Albert Sidney
Johnston, was scarcely a match for the wild riders of Utah, who
knew every cafion and gorge in the Wasatch. The Mormon boys
rode at full speed down hill-sides where a cavalryman dared not venture at a walk; and finding the army wagons parked, and their cattle
herded in the vegas on Ham's Fork, they set fire to the tall grass, and,
when the smoke had obscured the view, dashed across the burning
plain and drove off a thousand of Uncle Sam's cattle.
A few such exploits as this filled the Mormons with a vainglorious
pride, scarcely yet abated; and many a Saint even now tells with a




THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.


330


joyful glow how "the hirelings of King Buchanan gave back before
the Mormon boys;"  Winter found the Gentile army on the bleak
plains of Bridger, unable to move, and nearly all the Mormon soldiers
went home to enjoy the gayest winter Utah has ever passed. Songs,
sermons and dances, varied by glowing prophecies, kept them in


" DASHED ACROSS THE BURNING PLAIN."
splendid humor with themselves.     No people in an equal space of
time ever produced so much bad poetry as the Mormons; but a few of
their best songs have a ring in them that then made them popular,
especially if they breathed sarcasm and defiance of all the Gentile
world. While the elders prayed and prophesied, the boys in the
camps sang:
"Old Sam has sent, I understand,
Du dial!
A Missouri * ass to rule our land;
Duh dahI Duh dah day!
* Referring to Gov. Alfred Cumming, who was, however, a Georgian, and was greatly
enraged wlhen Brigham afterwards spoke of him as "from Missouri."




336


WESTERN WILDS.


But if he comes, we'll have some fun,
Du dah!
To see him and his juries run,  *
Duh dah! Du dah day!
CHORUS: Then let us be on hand
By Brigham Young to stand;
And if our enemies do appear,
We'll sweep them from the land.
"Old squaw-killer Harney is on the way,
Duh dah!
The Mormon people for to slay,
Duh dah! Duh dah day!
Now if he comes, the truth I'll tell,
Duh dah!
Our boys will drive him down to hell!
Duh dah! Duh dah day!"
But again were faith and hope vain. When the spring sun had
dissolved the show-packs from the passes of the Wasatch, the army
entered the valley, while 30,000 Mormons were on their flight southward. Col. Thomas L. Kane had entered Utah from the south; the
Peace Commissioners, Powell and McCulloch, had promised amnesty,
and Governor Cumming had entered Salt Lake City. But all in vain.
The people continued their mad flight southward, while Gov. Cumming stood by the road-side, tears rolling down his cheeks at sight of
their misery, and implored them to remain. It was midsummer before any considerable number returned; with them Briarly and his
family. But the mad proceedings of two years had not been without
their influence on our friends. Thomas James began to ask himself,
in all seriousness, if what he had witnessed could be the result of Divine guidance; and in Utah it is emphatically true, that he who hesitates is lost-to Mormonism. And now began that terrible conflict in
the soul of the young man, through which more than one apostate has
passed with tears of agony, with doubts and tremblings, with days of
painful self-examination, and nights of restless tossing and vain debate. Could it be that all was a delusion? That his father had died
on the plains, that he and those near to him were laboring and suffering-and all for a dismal lie? Losses of friends, property, honors, all
can be borne, and the strong man rise above them; but who can tell
the heart-rending agony of the devotee who has lost his God?
He scarcely knew why, but in no long time he found himself in a
small circle of those who suffered in the same way. Not that they sought
each other, or confessed their secret doubts at once; but little by little
they grew to understand each other. They labored to convince them



*


THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.                337
selves that there had only been slight errors; that in the main the
faith was correct, and they would receive their reward. But such
self-deception was not long possible. Chief among these sorrowing and
doubting ones was Elder John Banks. He had early embraced the
faith in England. He, too, had been a Chartist leader, and thought he
had found true liberty and brotherhood in Mormonism. And now a
strange friendship sprang up between the disappointed man and the
doubting lad. They walked and talked together; their Sundays and
leisure hours they spent in sad but pleasant communion over their
troubles, or in renewed study of the "'evidences" they had once
thought so convincing as to the divine origin of Mormonism. As
might be expected, the younger was the first to free himself. Let what
might be true, he knew in his heart that Brigham was not sent of
God. The Mormon faith he could not reject entirely, but compromised on the idea that a true prophet was yet to arise; that a terrible
mistake had in some way been made, and that in due time God would
remember His people. But the elder could not then begin a new
life; his heart was bound up in Mormonism) for which he had toiled
so long, and he urged his young friend to go with him and lay their
troubles before President Young. Brigham received them with that
paternal kindness he exercises towards all who may yet be saved to
the church; he doled out the usual commonplaces about " faithfulness," "obedience," "live your religion,"' and "pay your tithing."
But it brought no healing to these sore minds. Thomas James was
already "apostate in spirit," and there was more in the sad heart of
John Banks than he could put in words to Brigham Young.
The friends visited the Briarlys, and there saw the young Gentile,
now slowly convalescing. The younger looked on him and thought
of the great gulf that separated them. Here was a lad but few years
younger than himself, but with none of his heart-racking doubts and
fears. What was there in the nature of things which made him a
prey to conflicting emotions to which this one was a stranger? Sometimes he hoped Mormonism was all a delusion, but dreaded lest it
might be true; again he labored to prove to himself that it was true,
and still feared that his hope was vain; but whether he hoped or
feared, he somehow felt a strange envy of his new acquaintance, who,
though now an invalid, was at any rate neither a dupe nor a traitor to
his faith. The whole family soon took a strange interest in the young
Babylonian, whom fate had brought to their door. He could now sit
up and talk, and his talk was such a strange contrast to theirs. Secretly
they felt guilty for taking so much enjoyment in it, and yet his light22




*


338                    WESTERN WILDS.
est utterance seemed fresh and piquant. They did not know it, but
they were getting weary of " Tabernacle talk."  The strain they had
lived under had worn great grooves in their natures, almost without
their knowledge. The "wives" were not the fresh and guileless
English girls of four years before. Little by little they had learned
to shut up their souls, to hide their inmost nature from others, even
from themselves. That extreme reticence which polygamy engenders
had become a habit; a habit carried into all the concerns of life, even
where it was unnecessary. They were transformed, without knowing it,
from individuals into parts of a great machine; and though they sometimes felt a strange pain and longing, they scarce knew why, and
would have insisted with vehemence that they were happy in their -
present relations. To them, this pale Gentile, who had seen life from
the other side, as it were, and now talked in such a pleasant, grateful
way of his past and hope for the future, brought a strange pleasure
that had in it a touch of pain. On Manson their kindness had a
great effect. Mormonism he knew only from the current talk at
Camp Floyd-a view altogether presumed and one-sided; but were
not these people humane and gentle? were they not of his own race
and color? And could that be entirely bad which produced such
good results? And so, though not a word was said on either side
about religion, while the light utterances of the Gentile implanted
skepticism in the minds of the Saints, the simple kindness of the
Saints had almost converted the Gentile.
But none of these things touched Elwood Briarly. Four years in
polygamy had seared the delicate tendrils of his English heart; he
was, in his fanaticism, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; and to him this
stranger was only to be aided in his distress, because he bore the
human form, but quietly gotten rid of as soon as possible. And yet
there lingered one element of his best days; he loved his little
Marian, though he had given her two step-mothers, and brief as had
been that meeting in Iowva, he still felt the kindness of the boy, and
as far as might be with a Gentile, wished him well. Convalescence in
the stimulating air of Utah was rapi(l, and in due time Willie Manson
was able to seek employment with a Gentile merchant in the city,
and there he remained two years. His little English friend still retained his friendship, and in that desultory way, in which alone association between the two classes could then take place in Utah, he
occasionally visited and kept up his acquaintance with.the Briarlys.
Thus matters went on till the spring of 1862.
But- what strange transformation was this which the little English




THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.


339


maiden had undergone! Or was it really the same child he had
known, and whose prattle had so greatly amused him during his convalescence? It could not be, he thought, though the change had occurred before his eyes. No, she was no longer English; she had the
trim form, the delicate complexion, the arched instep, and the light
tripping step of the American girl. She was obeying the climatic
laws of sunny Utah, and not of foggy England. And thus have
thousands of British parents in that Territory lost their children.
For whether it be due more to climate, or to a change of fare, or to
exemption from the severe toil and hard life of the poor in Europe,
true it is that thousands of foreign-born female Saints, themselves
short and stocky, find their daughters growing up in the American
likeness; and the young girls "coming on" in Utah are so much
more handsome than the young girls just from Europe, that the
Saints are bewildered, and the revelation for "celestial marriage" is
often set at naught. But what was this other change which annoyed
the young man so greatly, and puzzled more than it annoyed him?
Was not this his friend, the same girl who had run to welcome him?
Why should she now avoid him, or blush and shrink away when he
spoke? True, she was older; but what is a woman, he thought, but
a girl of larger growth.? and why should the woman hate him when
the girl had felt so grateful to him? In all his experience he had
seen nothing like it. To add to his troubles the poor fellow was
lonesome. He had within him the gentle blood of that tall, handsome, and loving man whom he could barely remember, and he could
not assimilate with the rude society which was all he could find in the
floating Gentile population.  The brief period in which he had
yielded to dissipation at Camp Floyd, he now looked back upon with
disgust.  He felt within himself a capacity for better things; he
grew shy and uncommunicative, and spent his leisure hours in reading
or walking about the pleasant streets of the Mormon capital. Sometimes he wildly resolved on a return to the States, and again that he
would outfit With some of the parties going to the " new diggings,"
away up in the Blackfeet country. Then when another mood seized
him, he would venture on another visit to the Briarlys; and though
he was sure there was nothing pleasant in the sour looks of the Mormon, or the sad silence of his " wives," and least of all in the shy
avoidance of him by Marian, still he would go, because; as lie thought,
there was nowhere else to go. He pondered, and pondered again,
upon the unpleasant change which seemed to have come over every
body in whorm he felt an interest, and his musings always ended in




340


WESTERN WILDS.


one unanswerable question: Why should his little friend, who had
once liked him, now dislike and shun him?
But if all this was a mystery to Manson, it was clear enough to the
Mormon father, who had twenty years more experience in the ways of
this wicked world; clearer still to the ward teachers, who visited and
catechised every family in their jurisdiction once a week, and clearest
of all to the wary bishop of the sixth ward, whose business it was to
know every thing that was going on in his bishoprick. They knew,
none better, the strange impulses that wake up in the transition period
of life; they knew the various motives that influence men to think
they are serving the Creator, when they are only moved by the
creature. And now look out, young man, for move which way you
will, you are almost certain to make a mistake. A few months more,
and you will either be a bond-servant of Brigham Young-bound to
theocracy by ties you can not sever, and by oaths you dare not break,
or an enemy to be harassed and in time expelled.
*       *                     * *                    *      *
A new prophet had arisen, and John Banks was wild with joy.
Joseph Morris, a simple Welshman, had seen the heavens opened, and
through long ranks of shining horsemen the three celestial messengers
had come from the throne of Eloheim and bestowed on him the keys
of this last ministry.  Burning with zeal, he called on Brigham
Young to announce his mission, and was dismissed with a short, sharp,
and filthy response, which shocked but did not discourage him. Morris at once called upon the people to rally to the true standard, and
converts flocked to him from all over the Territory. They were no
longer without a living oracle. Brigham had no message to them from
the skies; he was a dumb prophet. Joseph Morris abounded in visions
and revelations. He was, the messenger of God, and the true priestly
successor of Joseph Smith. To John Banks this was the fullness of
the gospel indeed; he had grieved over the one-man power, and sighed
for the Brotherhood of the Saints, and in this mission he saw new
hope. For seventeen years there had been no voice from heaven, but
now Joseph Morris had revelations so fast that four clerks-two English and two Danish-were required to write them down. The reproach of the Saints, that there had been no revelator since the death
of Joseph Smith, was now taken away; and John Banks sought his
young friend Thomas James, with the glad tidings. He, too, longed
for a living prophet, and in a month was as zealous a "Morrisite " as
he had once been a Brighamite, and, with five hundred others, gathered
to the camp on the Weber. There revelations, charms, visions, coun



THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.


341


oils, and " speaking in tongues " followed in bewildering profusion. The
converts followed the (supposed) example of the early Christians, and
had all things in common. Christ was to come and reign in person in
a few months, and why trouble themselves about separate property?
At length Morris announced to his followers that they need plow and
sow no more; they had enough of grain and cattle to last them till
Christ came. So all business was suspended except hearkening to instructions, singing hymns, marching in the sacred circle, and listening
to revelations.  But the millennium failed to arrive, according to
promise. Then arose the inevitable quarrel, and secession of a few
members. These claimed a larger share of the common property than
the orthodox thought them entitled to, and, when refused, levied upon
the cattle and wheat of the community. Flour on its way from the
mill to the camp was seized by the dissenters; the dissenters were
seized in turn and held in close custody by the "Morrisites."  The
civil law was invoked, and the militia were ordered out. Once more
were the old Chartist and the young Radical to be disappointed; once
more was fate to give the lie to a prophet, and teach man, by painful
experience, what he should have known by the commonest of common
sense. The devotees of Morris were soon to learn what the devotees
of Brigham are slowly learning-that "who will not be ruled by the
rudder must be ruled by the rock."
One fine morning in June, 1862, appeared before the camp of the
" Morrisites " Robert Burton, sheriff of Salt Lake County and Mormon Bishop, with six hundred armed men and five pieces of artillery;
and sent in by the hand of the " Morrisite " cowherd a demand for the
surrender of Morris, Banks, and some others. At once the brethren
were called together in the bowery-an open shed where they usually
worshiped.  Morris put on his prophetic robe and crown, took his
divining rod, and proceeded to " inquire of the Lord about the matter;
while the whole congregation of five hundred men, women, and
children broke into a loud song, an invocation to the God of Israel
to descend in a chariot of fire and make known His power upon His
enemies.  By this time Morris had received the revelation.   It
promised that God would show His power, and to that end had
brought the posse upon them; that not a hair of the head of any of
His people should be injured; that not one of the faithful should be
destroyed. Scarcely had the last words died upon the air, when there
was a sharp whizz, followed by the boom of a cannon, then a scream
from the upper corner of the bowery. Two women fell dead from their
seats, fearfully mangled, and Elsie Nightingale had her under-jaw




342


WESTERN WILDS.


carried away by the same cannon shot. Never was prediction of a
prophet more suddenly and terribly falsified.  Ninety-three ablebodied men were all the camp could boast, but they at once flew to
arms. The cannon and long-range rifles of the Brighamite militia
completely raked the interior of the camp, the people being hid in
holes and trenches, while the "Morrisites" had nothing but common
guns with which to reply. Nevertheless, they refused to surrender,
and for three days, fighting with the desperate energy of religious
fanaticism, maintained the unequal battle. The third evening some
one raised a white flag. Bishop Burton, after the prisoners were disarmed and under guard, rode in among them and emptied his revolver
right and left, killing Morris and two women, and mortally wounding
John Banks. Thus ended the " Morrisite " secession.
A second time was Thomas James disappointed; a second time was
he the victim of his own fervent and fooling faith. But this time not
without recompense. In the "M orrisite" camp he had met one to
whom his religious nature instinctively paid reverence.  A Danish
girl, Christina Jahnsen, alone of her family had been a convert to the
new prophet; and through all the troubles of that troublous time
the young Briton had been cheered by her companionship and sympathy. Now all was over. The last hope of man for a living prophet
was dispelled. He was a captive with the rest, and confessed in his
inmost soul that he no longer believed, or could believe, in any man
claiming a mission from God. For the rest of his life he was a skeptic. He saw that the woman he loved was safe, at least from personal
danger, then determined to escape. While the Brighamite posse were
busy rifling the houses and tearing down the tents of the captive
" Morrisites," he sprang into the bushes and ran swiftly up the Weber.
A shot from one of the guards cut a deep flesh-wound along his side,
but he escaped. To return to the settlements he knew would be certai
capture; there was no chance for him but to continue eastward through
the mountains, till he could fall in with some Gentiles upon the Montana trail. Weak from loss of blood, his wound inflamed by exposure,
and with nothing but the wheat he could forage from the little patches
on the Weber, he still continued his flight. In Echo Cafion, at the
house of an old friend, he secretly received some aid and toiled on.
Passing the Wasatch, he entered on Bear River Valley, but there his
strength deserted him, and he sank helpless upon the ground. He
reflected with agony that he was off the main road and upon an obscure
trail, and would probably lie there unnoticed till want and fever had
done their work. The pain from his wound became unbearable. A




THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.


343


strange heat was on his face. As the sun rose higher it seemed that
his sight grew dim.  The bordering mountains receded, the plain
seemed to rise and swallow him up. Strange, distorted images passed
before his face, and he fell prone upon the grass, with but a few hours'
delirium between him and death.
It was something of a surprise to Willie Manson, when next he
called upon the Briarlys, to be received by the head of the family
with smiles of welcome, though he could not but notice that Marian
left the room as soon as he entered it. Her father was flanked on all
sides by documents: Orson Pratt's Works, The Pearl of Great
Price, The Key to Theology, The Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and.Covenants.  There was a long argument, of which le
understood but little save the beginning and ending, in these words:
"Why don't you accept the truth and become one of God's Saints?"
If Briarly had asked him why he didn't fly to heaven without wings,
the question would scarcely have seemed to him more absurd. But
the elder soon convinced him that he had something to do beside mere
pointless objecting, if he would answer the proof texts cited in support
of Mormonism. There was first the whole tenor of the Bible, to the
effect that prophets and apostles should always lead the true church;
there was not a line in the Old or New Testament to imply that miracles and prophecies should cease; and there was, on the other hand,
this explicit declaration of Saint Mark: " And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils; they
shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if
they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay
hands on the sick, and they shall recover." To this were added a
score of texts promising that God would always be with His people to
aid them in doing wonderful works; that they should have ever a
'witness to confound unbelievers; that they should trust, when sick,
not in an arm of flesh, but call in the elders, who should lay hands
on them, and that prophecy should not fail, or God leave himself without a witness. Against all this, where was there one text to show that
these gifts were to be confined to the apostolic age? For two hours
did Elder Briarly continue this argument, heaping up a mountain of
facts and texts which no man could meet who had not made theology
a study. Poor Manson was utterly confounded. In his trouble, he
happened to raise his eyes and glance into an adjoining room. There,
hidden from her father's sight, stood Marian, listening intently, her
gaze fixed upon Manson with an eager, pleading look that went to his




344s


WESTERN WILDS.


soul. It was but for a second. She was evidently off her guard. But
the young man left with a strange pain in his heart that he could not
analyze.
Once away from the personal influence of the elder, his mind instinctively revolted against the argument. He could not answer it;
but hefelt that Mormonism was a fraud. He went again and listened
to more searching arguments. This went on for weeks. He rarely
saw Marian, still more rarely got an opportunity to speak to her; but
instead, he listened to all the plausible sophistry of all the Mormon
apostles and apologists-a whole library of books devoted to perverting the Scriptures. He could not reply effectively, yet he did not
believe. All at once there was a sudden change. There was one
visit when no argument was offered, and little courtesy shown. He
went away greatly disconcerted; but some influence, he could not
have told what, soon took him there again. Elder Briarly received
him in silence, then opening one of his works of "authority," read:
"If any man, having heard the truth in its fullness by the mouth
of an elder, persists in unbelief, he is from that hour an enemy
of the faith. From such withdraw yourselves; for it is not possible
that such companionship should be profitable." "Young man," said
the elder, "that is our faith, and it shall be my practice. For the
future-you understand me."
Erelong Manson observed that some strange and evil influence was
around him. The old lady with whom he boarded suddenly declined
to extend any further accommodations, forcing him to seek a distant
and less convenient place. Soon he observed that Mormon customers avoided him, and always waited for some other clerk to attend on
them. The young men of his own age quietly dropped his acquaintance, but always without a word of explanation or ill humor. There
was no complaint at the store, but his employer could not fail to
observe that this clerk lost rather than gained him custom. Strange
changes had taken place in Utah. The army was gone, and the new
Federal officials seemed completely under the control of Brigham
Young. The nation was in a death struggle with rebellion, and every
Sunday the Tabernacle rang with fierce denunciations of the Gentile
government. This was the consumption decreed, this was the great
war foretold by the Prophet Joseph, which was to avenge the Saints
on their enemies; this was the beginning of the bloodshed which was
to lay waste Babylon, and bring the day when seven women would
take hold of one man, and a feeble remnant of the American race
come begging the Saints to save them from annihilation. Thus ran




THE FAIR APOSTATE-CONTINUED.


345


the Tabernacle talk. It was a dark time for the few Gentile residents. Every man must look out for himself, and those under ban
were to be avoided. In one month from his last conversation with
Elder Briarly, Willie Manson was out of his position in the store,
out of his latest lodgings, and in a frame of mind desperate enough
for any thing. In this mood he met a returned Californian, who had
halted in Salt Lake for a brief space, and instead of going on home,
had again been seized with the gold fever, and wanted a companion
to the northern diggings. In twenty-four hours they were equipped,
mounted and off, taking the route north-east to come upon the Bridger
trail, and secure a larger party to pass through the Indian country.
Their fourth day of leisurely travel they descended the eastern slope
of the main Wasatch, and turning more to the north, aimed for the
upper bend of Bear River. Midway upon this' plain, Manson was
amazed to find lying under a scrubby pine his acquaintance of the
previous year, the Mormon apostate and escaped "Morrisite," Thomas
James.
Hank Beatty, the Californian, was all impatience to press on to
the Montana gold fields. He had spent two years in California, and
started back poor as he came, and in a fever to get home; but the
older and more persistent fever again seized him, when he heard of
the rich discoveries in Montana, and he became again that eager, restless mortal-a gold-seeker. But Manson would not leave the sick
and wounded man.   He transported him to the nearest place where
good water could be procured and a rude shelter erected, and there
for a fortnight, while Beatty fumed and fretted, he nursed the unfortunate back to health and strength. As soon as he was able to ride
slowly, sharing the two horses between the three, they traveled on to
the Bridger and Fort Hall trail, and were soon in company with a
jolly party of Missourians, all primed for adventure, and sanguine of
getting gold beyond the dreams of avarice. But the adventure came
before the gold, for soon the whole country was swarming with Bannocks and Shoshonees.
These warlike savages looked upon the Montana emigration of 1861
and '62 as their legitimate prey. From the eastern foot of the Sierra
Nevada, clear to the Laramie Plains, the whole Shoshone nation
seemed to concentrate on this trail; with them soon came their kinsmen, the Bannocks, and erelong the way was dotted with the wrecks
of captured trains and the bodies of murdered emigrants. From
Bear River northward our party had an almost continuous running
fight. At last they reached a section where sleep and rest were




346                    WESTERN WILDS.
almost impossible. At night they halted, built fires, and hastily prepared their food; then struck off across the valley, built another fire,
as if for camp, then abandoned it, and passed the night on the highest accessible point of some barren rock. By day they grazed their
stock only on the most sheltered points, surrounded with scouts; and


I'J^
I^ ^'


"THE BRIGHT WEAPON GLITTERED IN THE AIR-BOW AND ARROW FELL FROM LIFELESS
HANDS."
at night agajn pursued the same devious course, building fires and
leaving them, traveling zigzag, taking their water, almost on the run,
from the few pools, and never camping near a stream or in a wooded
glen, but traveling the direct distance twice or three times over.




THE FAIR APOSTA TE-CONTINUED.


347


Now it was that Thomas James seemed to recover his health of body
and mind. Danger made him forget the past, and he soon came to
be relied on for every daring work. At the last stream they must
cross before entering the mining region, the savages had attained the
perfection of ambush; and James and Beatty were sent forward to
reconnoiter. From almost beneath their horses' feet, in the worst
part of the thicket bordering the stream, rose half a dozen savages.
Beatty whirled his horse to the left and spurred him into the timber,
but it was too late for James to return, who was in advance. Before
him stood a gigantic Bannock, his arrow on the bow and already half
drawn. Could he have looked forward a few years, how gladly would
he have welcomed the shot which should pierce his heart. But now,
life was still sweet, though he had lost so much. His long huntingknife was in his hand. His spurred animal dashed madly upon the
savage. One instant the keen, bright weapon glittered in the air; the
next bow and arrow fell from lifeless hands, and the burly Bannock
fell back into the pool, which was fast crimsoned with his heart's
blood. The momentum carried the horse forward into the opposite
thicket; there was a shower of arrows, but the white was out of
range. A short, sharp conflict followed; the savages were defeated,
and the long harassed emigrants. with joy hurried forward into the
open plain, and before night were in a region free from Indians.
Common danger and mutual good offices had bound the two young
men together as with hooks of steel; for on the plains men long associated must either become warm friends or bitter enemies. Together. they
mined upon the bar, together they prospected the lonely cation; they
shared in prosperity, and together suffered from the " stampede" and
disappointment in Sun River Gulch.   They lost property by the
"road agents," and acted with the Vigilantes. All this time they
were growing. Four years amid such scenes had developed them more
than ten of common life. But at last they grew weary of wild life.
There were those who drew them mightily towards Utah. The common impulse could not be resisted, after they learned that all had
changed for the better there.  The nation was no longer at war.
American soldiers were stationed at Salt Lake City. General Connor
had "civilized" the hostile Indians with one hand, and with the
other taught Brigham Young to respect the Gentile government. The
tide of overland travel again flowed through Utah in a.heavy volume.
Thousands of miners were going to winter in Salt Lake. The tide
was now southward, and the late autumn of 1865 saw our heroes again
upon the borders of Zion.




CHAPTER XXII.


THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.
THE hot, dry summer of 1866 hastened on. The long trains of the
newly converted were strung out from the Missouri to the Laramie,
and the deputed Saints from Utah were on their way to meet them.
The faint green of the bunoh-grass had yielded to its summer brown,
and the landscape of Cache Valley already showed that the Utah
season was a fruitful one. The July Sabbath saw a gay and happy
assemblage in Logan Ward; the harvest had been plentiful, and
Bishop Warren was alternately thundering against the ungodly, and
thanking the Mormon "Lord," in the ward assembly rooms. The
mountain maidens smiled and nodded as they passed into the spacious
building; the Mormon lads collected in the back seats, and the bishop
changed his strain to a tirade on "the laziness of the young people
of the present day." He told of digging ditches, building fences and
making dobies, and assured them they must learn it in this world, or
they would have a good deal more of it to do in the next. He then
branched off to the necessity of improving their stock, paying their
tithing, and keeping their covenants; " and, above all," said he, "let
no man sell his wheat till we get the word from Brother Brigham, for
these Montana men must buy of us, brethren, this year-they must do
it, for the Missouri's too low for 'em to run up flour from the States
that way. So hold on to your wheat till President Young gives the
word." After giving notice where the best bull could be found,* and
reading a list of estrays, the worthy bishop announced that certain
parties " who had been for awhile out of the Church, would now be
received back on profession of repentance, and baptized again," and
concluded with: "God bless you all, is my prayer, for Jesus' sake.
Amen."
But who is this that comes to be rebaptized and taken back to the
fold, " having apostatized from the Saints and been buffeted of Satan?"
It is none other than our once true hero, Thomas James!  And he
is happy as the day is long.  The bright sunshine of the bright Utah
* Fact! This was a frequent practice in Utah assemblies when the author first went
to the Territory.
(34S)




THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.


349


summer can add nothing to the sunshine in his heart, for he has
found Christina, and she is his promised wife.  But she is again a fanatical Mormon.   Her brief experience with the "Morrisites" had
been enough of independent thinking for her whole life-time, and she
was again with her family, and again one of the sister Saints. And
she was more beautiful than ever. Her clear complexion had just
enough of the Scandinavian tinge, her soft flaxen hair seemed to the
ardent youth finer than silk, her mild blue eye told of an affectionate
disposition and faithful heart. But all was not pleasant. She was
beautiful to others as well as him; and when the apostate youth, after
a wearisome winter in Salt Lake City, traced her to Cache Valley,
he did so only to find her sought in marriage by the bishop.  And
was it not more of an honor to be the "bishop's fourth" and his
"favorite," as she certainly would be, than the " slavey" of a poor
mechanic, to " nigger it on love and starvation?" Such talk she
heard daily. But that was only for this world. As for the next-ah,
there was the nameless horror she could not shake off.  For into the
soul of every believing Mormon woman was ground this sentence:
If she will not abide in this law, she shall be damned."  And the
" Revelation on Celestial Marriage " had too plainly pronounced the
future fate of all who marry unbelievers: " They shall be angels only,
and not gods; they shall be servants to those worthy of a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory." If she married a Gentile, there
could be no " exaltation " for her in the celestial world; she must remain a servant forever, "blessed with no increase;" go through
eternity without a husband, and be a hewer and drawer to other
women who had kept the law on earth. It was too terrible.
And so, when her former lover, after long waiting, had an opportunity to speak to her, she told him there was but one thing to do:
he must accept the gospel as revealed by Joseph Smith; he must reenter the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and live his religion, that he might secure " exaltation " for her and himself.
"Reenter the Church-be rebaptized? Why, certainly; why not?"
thought James. All religions are alike. It is but to pay tithing, and
observe the ordinances, to confess the errors of " Morrisite " belief, to
be " buried again in baptism," and thenceforward "obey counsel"
and run with the current. God knows he had had a hard enough time
running against the current; he would let things take their own
course now. What mattered it? He could subscribe to one belief as
well as another; and so, in sight of all the congregation, he owned
his manifold errors, received absolution, went down into the water,
A


/4




350


WESTERN WILDS.


was cleansed, and was again "Brother Thomas James, of Logan
Ward, assigned to Brother William Sessions' class, and to be fellovshiped accordingly."
How smoothly sped his love-making then!  How light appeared
his duties on the farm where he had contracted for the season's work!
How mild the soft moonlight nights, how grand the calm mountains,
how beautiful the crystal Logan River as it dashed down the pebbly
rapids near her home! Evening after evening he was with her. The
bishop seemed to have given up his suit.  Her friends, however, favored the man of position; he was of assured faith; this one might
apostatize again. There is an old proverb in Utah, which has something to say about the " danger of being rival to a bishop;" but could
any thing be more cordial than the conduct of Bishop Warren to the
reconverted man? Almost in spite of himself James was led on to open
his heart more freely to Bishop Warren than he would have believed
possible a year before.  And it must be confessed that he was not as
thoroughly versed in some of the minor points of doctrine as a man
should be to make a good impression on a bishop. ' And now James
was very much surprised to find that two or three of his acquaintances, young men of his own age, had their doubts also about the
truth of Mormonism; and, though he would not have had the bishop
know it for the world, he conversed freely with them, and confessed
his own motives and mental condition. True, he knew these young
men sometimes served as ward teachers, but what of that?  Was it
not probable that, like himself, the very intensity of their work for
Mormonism had set them to thinking? He knew that had been his
own case.  But there were several things he did not know.  He did
not know that on the soft, warm moonlight nights, when he lingered
in the garden or grove with Christina, there was an eye and ear
not far away, trained to the secret service of the Church; and that, as
his love-making progressed, and father and mother left them more to
themselves, and they spent half the night in the cosy arbor back of the
house, there was a mysterious way by which all their familiar secret
dalliance became a part of the Church records. No; there were
deeper depths in Mormonism than were suspected by the most suspicious English Saint; and even now in Utah not one in ten knows
the power that controls him. But human nature, especially male nature, is not changed by the stimulating air of Utah; and so, as the
warm nights passed, Christina's soft hair twined in his fingers, her
fair cheek resting on his bosom, her young and graceful form clasped
in his arms, her heart gently agitated with the half-resisting, half



THIRO UGH GREAT TRIBULATION1


351


yielding pliancy of love, it strangely happened that certain lines in
the " secret ritual" were forgotten, and the faithful ward teacher, then
on duty, had an important account to give the bishop at their next
meeting. And the bishop frowned, then smiled, then frowned again,
while the faithful teacher waited for his commendation, and really
could not tell whether his spiritual superior wvas pleased or angry.
It was a mild September Sabbath afternoon, and Bishop Warren
wvas thundering against covenant-breakers.  He grew furious about
" the wolves that would creep into the fold and ravage among the ewe
lambs;" he quoted the "blood-atonement" sermons of Jedediah M.
Grant and Brigham Young, and called for a " show of hands " as to
whether the brethren and sisters sustained these doctrines. All hands
were held up, and again he threatened the law-breakers. "There are
wolves among the, flock, but there are dogs set to guard it, and the
dogs have very sharp teeth.*  Now, brethren and sisters, keep your
own counsels. You, all know what was done at San Pete, when Edward Beauvais defiled a daughter of Zion. And I want you to understand that the boys of Logan are as true as the boys of San.
Pete. Now, keep still and mind your own business.  Judgment will
be laid to the line in Zion, and righteousness to the plummet in Logan. Ask no questions, and no lies will be told you. If you want information, don't gabble with your neighbors; come to your bishop.
He'll tell you what is good for you. And if you hear any thing
strange, don't go talking to your women about it; there are those set
in authority by the Lord God Almighty to inquire into such things.
But you mind your own business. All who say it is all right, hold up
your right hands.  [All hands up.]  May the Lord bless you all, for
Jesus' sake. Amen!"
The afternoon meeting ended; the Saints slowly wended their way
homeward, smiling and chatting. In the front yards and neat gardens gathered the family groups for a peaceful evening; the red
sun sank behind the Promontory Range, and the calm of a Puritan
Sabbath settled down upon Cache Valley. How happy these people
must be!-at least so many a Gentile visitor has said.  How calm,
how peaceful, how free from envy, care and strife!
But the dark night drew on. About 10 P. M. three figures appeared in the shadow between the ward meeting-house and the line
of box-elders beside it.  There wtis yet no moon; still they kept in.
the shadow. A fourth softly approached.
'* See " blood-atonement " sermon by Orson Hyde, in the " Journal of Discourses."


6




352


WESTERN WILDS.


"Are you fixed, brethren?"             '
We are, bishop. Which is it to be?"
"You know-the endowment penalty-second grade.    The daugh,
ters of Zion must be protected."
" But that is not -- "
"No! It is death-so written; but this time the other will be better. You understand? Hist!"
They vanished in the darkness.
Thomas James's cup of earthly happiness seemed full. He felt
no consciousness that this was a world of errors, and that he had
committed a very serious one. Were not he and Christina to be man
and wife in a few weeks, and would it not be all right then? It was
midnight before he gave her a good-bye kiss, and took the quiet road
down along the banks of the Logan River. The late half-moon was
just beginning to peep over the rugged Wasatch, casting great scallops
of light and shade across the valley. How   musically the river
rippled over its clear, pebbly bottom! how pleasantly gurgled the water-seeks along the road-side! And how still was the peaceful Mormon
town!-how far superior to the manufacturing cities of the East,
where there was riot and strife, and sometimes murder! What a kind
and social people was this people!  How little crime there was here!
He laughed aloud as he thought of the absurd stories he had heard
concerning "the danger of being a bishop's rival."  And as the bright
surface of the crystal stream shone in the moonlight, it seemed to him
a fit emblem of the peace over the land; its dancing wavelets represented the joy in his own heart. Yes, this was indeed a land of
peace; and if Mormonism was not true, these were in a sense "God's
people," among whom all honest men were safe.
Ha! What was that?
Nothing, apparently, but some brother's cow moving among the tall
weeds.  Snapping off the head of a wild sunflower with his light
walking-cane, he turned into the dark grove which lay between him
and home.   Sharp and shrill came a whistle from in front. He
started back suddenly. A rope fell about his heels. He instinctively
threw up his hands to save himself from falling. A sack was cast
over his. head.  It was drawn tight from behind.  He struggled desperately, but his mouth was so bound he could not utter a cry. Stout
arms had hold of him; they pinioned every limb. Helpless, voiceless, still desperately struggling, he was borne away, he knew not
whither.




THRO UGH GREAT TRIBULA TION.


353


If Willie Manson had been astonished at his last visit to Briarly in
1862, how was he amazed by the latter's conduct in 1866! For Briarly had returned from a mission on the Rio Virgen, whither he had
been sent in 1863 "to build up the waste places;" and he not only
sought Manson at the store where he had found employment, but
talked with such graceful fluency that the Gentile was quite conobunded. He showered invitations on him to visit them at home; he
never alluded to any thing disagreeable that had passed between
them; he inquired with almost embarrassing interest of Manson's success in the mines, and talked about the return of peace in the States
and the glory of the American nation in a way that would have put
the warmest Republican in the shade. Here was a change indeed.
Why he did not at once accept these flattering invitations, Willie
could not for his life have told. He was sure he etained no malice
against Briarly, as indeed why should he? He knew of no harm this
Mormon had done him, and he did recall some good. And yet he
did not at once accept.  He saw that Briarly was now an elder of
some rank; that he was in a fair way to become a bishop; that he
was loud in "bearing testimony" in all "experience meetings," and at
times held forth eloquently in the Tabernacle on the " evidences."  But
he noticed, too, that Briarly never called on-him when other Mormons were in the store, and that his effusive utterances were always
in a corner, and when no third party was near.
He pondered the matter until it became really tormenting, and
then had recourse to his friend Hank Beatty, who had returned from
Montana with a good-sized belt full of " dust," and now lingered in
Zion. ' Beatty heard the account through carefully, cocked his head
on one side, closed one eye in profound meditation for a moment, then
everted his leathery lips, and, with a regular Missouri "thlurp,"
ejected a gill or so of ambeer into the water-seek.  After it, flavored
with nicotine, came this oracular response:
" Keep your eye peeled-somethin's up.  This is. a queer country."
Manson was painfully aware of the truth conveyed in the last sentence; but now the thought suddenly occurred to him, "What had
come over Beatty lately'?"  The latter lingered unaccountably.  He
had said that he left home, in New York, in 1860, and went by sea to
California; he had, in 1862, and again in 1865, been in a fever to get
home, and it ran into Manson's mind that Beatty had once told him
something about having a family, but he was not positive about this.
And now the man seemed to have abandoned all idea of going home.
He was enthusiastic in his praises of Utah and the Mormons; he
23           A




354


WtESTERN WILDS.


pointed often to the hills, and said, in his oracular way: " Money
there, my boy; don't you run away from it." To add to Manson's
perplexities, his dearer friend, Thomas James, had suddenly departed
for the northern settlements, and had never sent him word or line.
What a horribly selfish passion is love! It makes one forget all the
world but two persons-self and the other self.
Manson was almost ready to conclude that human nature itself had
changed in this anomalous country. Here were lakes of pure brine
with no outlet to the sea; all the streams ran towards the center and
none towards the ocean; a river was larger at the head than at the
mouth; it had two ends and was biggest in the middle; most of the
streams came to an end without joining other streams, and though the
lakes were forever fed, they were never full. Why should not man's
nature be inverted in such a country?  Where there was no consistency in nature it was unreasonable to look for it in man. So he decided to take chances and visit the Briarlys.
There was a change indeed. He saw but one "wife," and heard no
allusion whatever to Marian.  The elder explained in an awkward
way that his "wife Matilda was on the ranche down on the Virgen "that was all. Manson was strangely distrait and nervous; and was
not at all helped by observing every time he looked up, that his host's
eyes were fixed upon him with a strange, inquiring look he could not
comprehend. But as they sat down to dinner-it was on Sunday-a
man appeared at the gate, and the elder broke forth at once, without
warning or prefatory remark, into a wordy defense of polygamy. As
no previous reference had been made to this subject, Manson could
scarcely conceal his astonishment. But his habits of thought were
very different from what they had been four years before, and he was
prepared for argument, as are nearly all Gentiles who reside long in
Utah. The new-comer entered, and made the usual salutations just
as Briarly was saying:
"s Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.  He was called the friend of God-the father of God's
chosen people. He,had no child till he took Hagar to wife, then God
blessed him with a son by Sarah also, showing that God approbated
his polygamy."
" Yes," said the new-comer, whom Manson soon suspected to be one
of the ward teachers; C you pretend to revere Abraham-you might
profitably follow his example."
"Which example?" said Manson, "when he married his sister, or
when he lied about it? You know he did both."




THRO UGH GREAT TRIB ULATION.


"IDo you revile the patriarchs?" said the teacher, with rising color.
"I only say of the patriarchs what the Bible says of them, that
they did many bad things, things which would now be considered
crimes."
"But God's word specifies all the sins and crimes. You can not
show a text forbidding polygamy."
"Perhaps not in express words, but I can show that the general
teaching is against it. You can not show a text expressly forbidding
gambling or slavery; but we know they are not justified."
" But was not Hagar given Abraham of God?"
" No. The record shows that God had nothing to do with Abraham's polygamy. It resulted from Sarah's want of faith. She had
been promised a son, and as the boy did not come along soon enough,
she thought she would help the Lord to keep His promise, and so she
give her husband to Hagar with. the express understanding that the
child should be Sarah's. According to my notion, the Lord had nothing to do with it."
"But Abraham did practice plurality, and the Lord did not condemn him for it-you can't get around that."
"Yes, Abraham's first wife was his half-sister, and his second
was a colored woman, and you can't show a line in the Bible to prove
that she was married to him. The Lord always speaks of her as a
'bond-woman, and her son as 'the son of the bond-woman.' She
was n't Abraham's wife at all."
"Sir-r," said the teacher-and as he warmed with the debate, his
Yorkshire accent came out stronger. "You revile what you do not
understand. ' No man knoweth the things of God, save the Spirit of
God teach him,' and you have no witness. But we have in us that
knowledge which enables us to sense divine truth. I know this work
is of God. I know that plurality is the celestial law."  And to this
Briarly gave an emphatic assent. He had the spirit; there was a witness the Gentile knew not of; he must be baptized for the remission
of sins, and receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands of one
that held the true priesthood.  Then this witness should be given!
him, and he would know for himself, and not for another, that this
work was of God. But among the Gentiles there was no priest-or
preacher with authority from God; hence they could not have this
witness-and much more to the same effect.
But Manson was not to be diverted from the main question. The
controversial spirit was aroused in him, and with many interruptions
he went on:




356


WESTERN WILDS.


" There is not a case of plural marriage reported in the Bible but
what it led straight to quarreling, and sometimes to murder. The
whole Bible only relates thirteen cases of polygamy among the righteous race, while it tells of hundreds of patriarchs, prophets, and kings
who either had but one wife each, or none at all. There was Lamech:
the first pluralist rm e n -
tioned, w a s
t h e  second
mentione d.
'took   up'
with the hired
qagirl, and she
had a baby;
That was a nice family for  Americas to pattern after, was ne
abused    her,
and  he sent
her and her
ness. Asaac,
the best man
of the outfit,
never had
more than one
wife.  Jacob
was swindled
into plurality."BEHOLD OU LAMXAITE BROTHER."         by his heathen
father-in-law; then swindled his father-in-law with the trick of the
peeled rods; and after it all his children quarreled, their mothers
quarreled, and ten of the boys sold another into slavery.
" That was a nice family for us Americans to pattern after, was n't
it? Then there was David ---married one widow before her husband
had been dead a week, and had another man killed so he could get
his wife; and after it all, his children quarreled like cats and dogs,
and one of them rebelled and drove the old man out of his own house
for awhile. And Solomon-he violated their law, which says the




THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.


357


'king must not multiply wives lest his heart turn away' *, He did
multiply wives, and his heart did turn away. Now look at the )other
fellows. When the Lord started man on earth, he created a one-wife
man; when he saved the race, he saved a family with one wife each,
and drowned all the pluralists; and when Christ came, his earthly
parents were one man and his one wife. It looks to me like that's thli
safest example to follow."
It must not be supposed that our friend was allowed to give this view
continuously; that would be a new experience in Utah. The ward
teacher had thrown in knotty texts at every pause, and now, wrought
up to the "sermon point," he concluded with the usual apostolic
curse-" Behold our Lamanite brother!" And to emphasize the matter
a Southern Ute entered the yard, tricked out in all the gaudy finery
which they affect when annuity goods are plenty. "He is the last of
a mighty race that rejected the truth.  Look at the cities of the
plain. Behold the desolation of the East as foretold in the prophets.
The same shall come upon your boasted Union. It's been split in
two once, and patched up again; but, mark ye, it's like an old bowlit '11 break again in a little while, and ye can't fix it. Then you'll
flee to these mountains for safety;' for the Lord '11 come out of his
hiding-place and vex the nation in his fury;" and so on for an
hour.
As he concluded a light step was heard at the door, and, looking up,
Manson saw a face that had vaguely haunted him through all his
Montana wanderings.  He felt the warm blood rush to his cheeks;
and in that instant he recognized the source of his uncertainties. four
years before. He now knew why he had lost his little girl friend, and
why he was so strangely distrait in her presence, and she so strangely
perverse, apparently unfriendly. He understood it all. She had been
in the far South, in " Mormon Dixie," and just returned. A faint
flush overspread her face as Manson advanced to meet her; in an instant it passed away, and she accosted him with a manner and words
that plainly showed she meant to consider him merely as " some one she
had met before."  But his frame thrilled as their hands touched. It
was all over with him.   He was madly, violently in love. He
scarcely knew how he got out of the house and got home. There was
a messenger waiting-a returned miner from Montana-who bore. a
note, in a well-remembered hand. But it contained only these words:
Will: For God's sake, come and see me.
TOM JAMES.
*Deuteronomy xvii: 17.


f




358


3WESTERN WILDS.


Certainly he would go, only he must make some preparations
first. But why was Tom so urgent? and if so urgent, why had he
kept silent so long? The Montanian was gone before Manson had
thought to ask, and the next minute he was astonished to see Beatty,
with a wagon-load of Mormons, driving out the Tooele road. And
now it was evening, and he must have some time to think; and
when it was morning, he thought he must see Marian once more before
he left, for surely if Tom had been sick, or any thing wrong, he would
have said so. Now, contrary to the usual rule, bad news does not
travel fast in Utah; and when Manson bad dispatched a note by the
slow mail of those days, a week passed before he could take the first
step of preparation; and at the end of that week came another note,
and, strange to say, by another returning miner instead of the mail,
and it merely said:
" You need not come; wait for me."
And it is almost a shame to relate it, but ten minutes after the note
was read, Manson had already dismissed it from his mind, and was
pondering on his intended visit to Marian. Ah! love is a terribly
selfish passion.  I
And now the conduct of Elder Briarly was more a puzzle than ever.
He came again to the store, but talked very little; and when Manson,
after waiting on a customer, happened to glance suddenly at the
Elder, he saw the latter watching him with an eager intensity, as if he
would read his very thoughts. He could not understand it, and yet
he knew that it made him very uncomfortable. Worse still, it made
him half afraid; and so, while he was in a fever of impatience to see
Marian, he still hung back irresolutely till another Sunday came, and
went. He saw her far across the Tabernacle, and was feasting his
eyes on her face, when her father was suddenly called upon to "' address the brethren." And now, to Manson's astonishment, Elder
Briarly rose and delivered a fierce philippic against all Gentiles, from
that very uncompromising text: " He that is not for us, is against us."
The Mormons, be it noted, have a most unhappy facility of getting hold of all the hard, uncharitable (I say it with reverence)
texts in the Bible; and while they preach a thousand sermons a year
on this text, not one of them was ever known to quote the rendering
given by another Evangelist: "tHe that is not against us, is on our
part."
Manson fairly shuddered while the elder launched metaphorical
fire and brimstone on "sour enemies, who have followed us to these
valleys of the mountains," and denounced every lax saint who favored




THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.


359


the ungodly Babylonians. Thence he branched off to the history of
the Church, and recounted more persecutions than were suffered by the
early Christians. Racks, hatchets, swords and dungeons glimmered
through his sermon in mazy confusion, and he galloped recklessly
over bloody figures of speech like an oratorical Bashi-Bazouk. Manson was positively frightened, and suffered two weeks more of self-tormenting fancies before he dared venture to see Marian. It was now
late autumn, and the evening was cold, but his head felt hot enough
as he turned the familiar corner in tho sixth ward. To his amazement, as he met the father coming out, the latter bowed low, spoke
most graciously, then glanced around and hurried away as if he had
been stealing a sheep! What was the matter, thought Manson, that
people in these peaceful valleys should be so afraid of each other?
Surely this was the quietest city on the continent. Every traveler
said so, and yet
There was Marian, alone in the large orchard and garden combined,
which surrounds these Mormon dwellings. She smiled faintly, extended her hand, and said something about "neglecting old friends."
The hot blood rushed over him. His native "hoosier" impulsiveness had the mastery. He never could have told you howl he did ithow then can I? But he had her hand. He was kissing it. He was
pouring out passionate words. Now he head her in his arms. He
said every thing-and nothing. He left every sentence unfinished.
His speech could not have been reported by a lightning phonographer.' There were no connected words in it, indeed. But it had the
essential element of strength. And at the end of it, they were far
back in a thicket; his hat was upon the ground, her head upon his
shoulder, and he felt as if he needed a dozen arms and hands. And
yet the innocent fellow did not know if his prayer had been granted.
Time was needed to make it clear to his mind. But after the storm
came a great calm of enjoyment. The cold night was unheeded by
the happy lovers, till the step of her father returning from the "experience meeting" aroused them to the painful fact that they were still
in a world of difficulties, and that much lay between them and the
fruition of their hopes. But Manson went home as if he trod on air.
He was too happy to sleep. The first revulsion came when, at the
usual hour next day, he saw Elder Briarly enter. But now the peculiarities of the elder seemed tenfold increased. He talked in a loud
and aggressive tone with the few Mormon customers. When they had
gone, he seemed to fall into a reverie. Manson felt instinctively that
the elder had learned all from his daughter, and his heart beat with




360


WESTERN WILDS.


fearful violence whenever the latter approached him; but every time
the elder would again turn away in silence. The suspense becanue
unbearable. At length there came a lull in the morning business.
Briarly went to the door as if to leave. He passed into the street,
and looked both ways, then suddenly reentered, and came hurriedly to
the rear end, where Manson stood. The latter leaned forward, uncertain whether he was to be denounced or pleasantly entreated, and
was about to speak, when the elder hurriedly inclined his mouth to
the Gentile's ear, and hissed rather than whispered:
"In God's name, is there any way we can get out of this infernal
country? "
The light step of a Mormon woman was heard at the door. The
elder turned with a cheery greeting and loud laugh; then passed at
once into the street, leaving Manson almost petrified with amazement.
*         *         *         *         *        *         *
It was midwinter, and there was another Gentile panic. The
"outsiders" had thought their troubles over; that law was to reign in
Utah. But in the spring, S. N. Brassfield was shot dead while walking the streets in the custody of an officer. In October, Dr. Robinson was brutally assassinated. Non-Mormon settlers on the public
lands were mobbed, shot, thrown in the Jordan, and driven away.
Willie Manson thought he had troubles enough, when one day a pale,
spiritless looking man entered the store, and said he was Thomas
James! Oh, no! It could not be, thought Manson. Not the bold
horseman who had cut his way through ranks of brave Bannocks!
Not the stout young Briton who had done and dared so much in
Montana! Yet it was. But not the same. Never to be the same
again. For now Manson listened to a narrative that chilled his
blood with horror. Thomas James had suffered at the hands of the
priesthood the last terrible indignity that man can suffer-compared
with which murder is a light offense. A creature walked abroad,
called by the same name; but Thomas James, the yeoman, would never
again dare death in Indian combat, or rival a bishop in love. Where
could he go, and what could he do? asked his pitying friend. He
was not alone. Utah in that sad time contained more than one who
had suffered like him-men, so-called, shrinking along the streets,
ashamed to meet their kind. For, let this misfortune come how it
may, on innocent or guilty, while reason protests that we ought not
to despise such a one, the subtle instinct of manhood commands that
we shall.
Thomas James went south with a party going to San Bernardino;




THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.


361


and in due time the report reached Salt Lake City that he had died
there, insane. Bishop Warren extended his possessions, and was a
father unto his people. There wvas peace and order in his bishoprick;
the apostle in charge of Cache Valley recommended this good steward for reward; and strangely enough, when Brigham asked his will,
the bishop only wanted another wife, as he had but four, and his
kingdom was not increasing as fast as he could wish. To Christina
Jahnsen, sorrowful and lonely, came the good sisters with a world of
good advice. Innuendoes, hints at what had been said and heard,
insinuations that her lover had boasted of his conquest, parts of letters said to have been written-all these skillfully woven into an imposing lie-soon did their work. Believing herself doubly betrayed,
a sinner against God and a traitor to the Church, she submitted to
whatever was required; and before the winter was past the Endowment House witnessed the sacrifice of another victim, and the fatherly
bishop went home with his young wife. The laws of Zion had been
vindicated. Virtue, according to the Mormon idea, had been protected; the daughters of Zion were wvarned, and the careful bishop
had his reward.
But the married woman soon learns what the ignorant girl could
not even have suspected. She learned too soon that she had been
cruelly deceived. That calm nature was aroused, and the lovely woman
had a devil in her heart. Then began the battle. It was a weak
woman against a whole community; an individual against a system.
Fierce as a fury she flew upon her "husband," and cursed him with
frantic vehemence. She raved and prayed by turns; she could not
yet cast off her faith in Mormonism, but she hated it because it was
true. Then came the ("counsel" of ward teachers; the direction to
humble herself, to. make her peace with the man who was her " head
in Christ." But she raved on. It was now insanity. Then was
pronounced the common verdict in such cases: " Possessed of a devil."
The elders came with the holy oil and laying on of hands. But the
"possession " would not be charmed away. Then she was bound down
"till such time as the devil should cease to afflict her."
About her came all the canting sisterhood, the malignant, the
stupid, the fanatical, to preach " submission to the will of God." " It
is the duty of us all, Sister. Brother Warren is an upright man,
a faithful Saint; he will give you a great exaltation in the eternities.
With a Gentile you would be a servant, world without end.
Just think, dear Sister, how dreadful to be a hewer of wood and
drawer of water through all eternity for other women, when yot




362


WESTERN WILDS.


might have been a queen in the celestial heavens." Still she raved, and
railed on the Church and all the priesthood. Again was she bound;
again the holy oil and laying on of hands. Then " the devil left her."
A strange calm followed. The faithful rejoiced over a sister restored.
She went about her duties in silence and submission. But there was
that in her eye which the dull brethren about her did not note; there
was a far away look, that showed a mind set on something the eye
could not see. An inward fever scorched her blood, and dried up the
sources of her beauty. Her child was born and died, but she heeded
it not. Two years passed, and the bishop's " favorite and No. 5" began
already to be known as the bishop's "old woman." Another year,
and she was away from Logan; now on the bishop's ranche, in Bear
River Valley. The bishop now had another "favorite," a No. 6; and
few.who noticed No. 5 at her wearing tasks, "taking care of things
at the ranche," ever stopped to think how fast the bishop's late favorite had become an "old woman," or to wonder that that head, fast
turning gray, and that wrinkled face, could belong to a woman over
whose head but twenty-five years had passed. At length there came
a night when the storm was abroad upon the desert. The fierce wind
howled along the Humboldt Range, gathered the red sand in ghastly
pillars that rolled over Promontory Range, and swept with blinding
force upon the eastern valley. People said: ' It is one of our worst
dust storms-it will purify the air," and thought of the season, the
crops and their several material gains. But the dust storm grew to a
tornado; and when it passed, the crazy log-hut on the bishop's ranche
was in ruins. A calm and glorious morning followed the storm; the
Utah valleys never looked more peaceful than then. But in that
storm a greater storm had been stilled. Beneath the pitying stars
that shone through the flying clouds that night, a soul had found
release; another subject had deserted from Brigham's kingdom, and
the sad Danish girl was young again in the heaven of her beloved.
The mystery of his intended father-in-law was no longer a mystery
to Willie Manson. The elder had long been apostate in heart, and
secretly mourned his inability to escape from his bondage. But how
could he break the ties which bound him in Utah?  He now had
three wives, but every day he secretly thanked God that the last one
was childless. Ten years he had lived in polygamy, and Marian
had nine half-brothers and sisters. Could he leave these innocent
ones in this country? And could he hope to get them safely away?
Could he trust his own wives, whom the ward teachers, in accordance




THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.


363


with the "secret ritual," exgmined separately every week? Could he
trust his dearest friend? Was there any one or any thing in this land
of intrigue and priestly supervision, who would be true?  How
often did he gaze upon the snowy summits of the Wasatch, and curse
the hour when he made himself a virtual prisoner in these valleys!
It was easy to say that the laws of the country protected him in
going where he pleased. But there was another law here more powerful than any written law.  His property was "consecrated" by
deeds which he once thought a mere form, but now knew to be
valid. The church owned it all, if the trustee-in-trust but chose to
exercise his power. In his days of fanaticism he had bound himself
by the "Perfect Oneness in Christ," and now all he had was security
for all the other members of his "quorum."  Though he had paid
his own passage and that of Marian from Liverpool to Salt Lake,
yet he had, as requested by the bishop in charge, indorsed the. notes
for passage money of a dozen of his poorer brethren; and he knew
too well that all these notes were ready to be presented at a moment's notice.  And the good bishops and apostles who constitute
the Utah Legislature had taken excellent care on this point. For a
resident there was no end of exemptions; it was scarcely possible to
collect a debt by law.  But for "one intending to leave the Territory"-it was expressly enacted that there was no exemption. And
if one should try to leave before every debt was paid, there was the
law against "absconding debtors " —they could be imprisoned "at
the discretion of the court."  And such a court! The probate
judge of each county was the presiding bishop thereof-the sworn
servant of Brigham   Young.   Verily, the "cut-throat laws of
Utah" were made by men who have had experience in ecclesiastical tyranny.
For three years ElJler Briarly had lived a stupendous lie. Knowing himself to be an apostate, suspecting himself to be the object of
suspicion, he thought, as thousands have thought, to make his position more secure by a show of zeal. And then his wives-what was
he to do with them?  He was but a man, and in his secret soul he
confessed that he loved the one, was indifferent to the second, and
positively detested the third. What if the detested one should penetrate his designs? He groaned in spirit at the thought. hThere was
nothing for him but determined reticence; and so his home life was
a continuing lie-a lie so complex, so gigantic, that it corrupted
every element of his nature, and changed him from a man and
a Briton to a self-despised thing.  And so it must be with every




364


WESTERN WILDS.


man in polygamy, unless, like the Oriental, he regard his women
as playthings or slaves, and look with lordly indifference upon
them all.
But there came a time when he must choose. He could no longer
stand behind the door and grit his teeth when the troubles of polygamy pressed upon him. Brigham was now inaugurating schemes
wihich would make every submissive Mormon a slave. He must escape with whatever he could take, or whoever would go with him,
and trust the others to follow. Very secretly he made a few preparations, Manson assisting as far as was safe.  Assuredly there was
need of caution. The Gentiles were in a condition of panic. The
few soldiers at Camp Douglas were of no avail in the city. In one
instance a guard had been sent to see that Miss Sarah Carmichael,
the poetess, reached the stage coach in safety; but this was an experiment not to be repeated.  The President of the United States
was now devoting his mighty energies to thwarting the Republican
party; and in Utah every Federal official suspected of "radicalism"
was removed, and a Mormon put in his place. Burton, the murderer
of the Morrisites, held the best office in the Territory. One Federal
judge was a Mormon elder. The Governor was expressly instructed
"not to irritate the Mormons."  Other officials were the subservient
tools of Brigham Young. Among the army officers alone could the
harassed 'Gentiles and apostates hope to find friends. At length the
general commanding the department announced that an expedition
would start for the Missouri River on a certain day, and whoever
would might "travel under their protection through the Indian country." The priesthood laughed at this wording, and sneered at the
Gentile officer for thus insinuating that any one wanted to leave
Utah. The night before the day set, there was not a sign of preparation in the city. Daylight next morning showed a caravan of two
hundred people camped about the garrison: men, women and children, miserably equipped indeed, but eager for the journey. Among
them were Manson and the Briarlys. They had got away with little
indeed,-whatever the elder could convert into ready money, besides
his one team and wagon.  The rest of his property would go, according to the apostolic law of "laying on of hands."  But he
hac all his children, and two "wives."  For the one some provision
must be made in the States.  For the present it was enough to get
away.
The snow yet lay deep in the passes, and the winter wind still
howled over the high plains; but Manson confessed himself strangely




THRO UGH GREAT TRIB ULA TION.


365


happy in the midst of all the hardships.  For now he had a recognized right to care for Marian.  The miseries of the journey so
early in the season need not be recounted. The open sky, or a rude
tent, for women and children in March and April, on the high plains,
would seem bad enough; but to Marian and her father they were luxury itself compared with what they remembered of their journey out.
They mourned their kinsman, Thomas James, who had gone south a
few days before their departure; but for themselves they rejoiced over
every mile put between them   and Utah.   The mountains were
passed, and early summer found them on the Missouri, eleven years
after they had left it as fanatical Mormons. Eleven years, from the
short span of life, in what had been to Elder Briarly a school of degradation.
A new era had set in. The Pacific Railroad was pushing westward,
and paper cities were springing up along its way.  Leaving his
friends in Iowa, Manson again turned his face westward, determined
to win a fortune before he should claim Marian for his own. Through
all the ups and downs of that strange moving community, from
Cheyenne to Promontory, he toiled on, ever keeping in mind the
prize that awaited him, and thus guarded against the temptations
which prevailed over so many.  The autumn of 1869 found him
again in Utah, now among the new mines which were every-where
being opened. His old friend, Hank Briarly, was exploring the west
mountains, and urged Manson to join him.  Before determining his
course, business called him to Green River.  There, as he walked
amid the ruins of that railroad "city," he was astonished at being
accosted by a lady of pleasant aspect, but with a face on which
trouble had left its mark.  She had visited in turn every railroad
town, and her one inquiry was, "Do you know any man about here
by the name of Henry Beatty?"
Startled as Manson was by this inquiry, some instinct made him
cautious in his reply. Yes, he did know him, and he believed Beatty
was now in Utah. The lady overwhelmed him with thanks, and accompanied him on the next train to Ogden. Her joy prevailed over
her reserve.  She talked to Manson as an old friend.  While she
gently complained of the long silence of her husband, she yet found
a thousand excuses for him.
"He was so high spirited," she said, "and not willing to plod
along the common road. I am English born, you know, and had
property left me in my own name; and it worried Mr. Beatty that he
should not add as much more; and nine years ago —dear me, how




366


WESTERN WILDS.


long it seems-nine years ago he went to California, and then to
Montana."
Manson winced as he remembered some things in that experience,
and dreaded something to come, he knew not what; but he held his
peace. They had taken the coach at Ogden, and were fast speeding towards Salt Lake, when the lady resumed:
"For a long time he wrote so regularly; then not so often, and now
for eight months I have not heard a word. At first I thought it was
because he was coming home; and then I got afraid he might be."   She shuddered and paused.      But she was too much pleased
with the information Manson had given her to treat him as a stranger,
and continued her reminiscences.
They reached the city, and Mrs. Beatty could scarcely rest till she
had learned that her husband had gone to Tooele, and had secured a
seat in the next coach for that place.  Meanwhile she made a few purchases, and again sent for Manson to make some inquiries.      As she
mechanically unrolled the articles she had bought, talking cheerfully
to her new-found friend, her eye fell upon an old copy of the Salt
Lake Telegraph, in which they were wrapped. Suddenly her cheerful
tones ceased. For a minute she held the paper, with her eyes fixed
upon it, then a loud scream rang through the hotel, and she sank apparently lifeless upon the parlor floor.
There was a commotion in the hotel.     The landlady and chambermaids hurried to help the strange lady.    Manson knew that the evil
he dreaded had come, whatever it was. When the lady had revived a
little, and been taken to her room, he picked up the Telegraph and
read this:
LEGAL NOTICE.
TERRITORY OF UTAH, }  In the Probate Court of Tooele County, October Session, 1868.
TOOELE CO1NTY, SS:
HENRY BEATTY VS. SARAH ANN BEATTY.
Action for Divorce.
Defendant in the above entitled cause will take notice that plaintiff has filed his complaint in this court, and due publication been made thereof according to law; that
plaintiff seeks complete legal separation from said defendant, and exemption from all
the liabilities of matrimony. Cause alleged: Abandonment and refusal of said defendant to live with him in marriage. Now, therefore, defendant is notified that unless she appear at the ensuing term of this court, to be holden at the court-house in
Tooele City, on the first Monday in December, 1868, and make due answer, said
case will be heard and determined in her absence.
JOHN WOODBURY, Judge P. C., Tooele County.


~WILSON SNOW, Clerk P. C., Tooele County.


-[Salt Lake Telegraph. w-5t.




THROUGIH GREAT TRIBULATION.


367


Five weeks passed, and a pale shadow of the cheery English lady
was seated in the Tooele coach.  She made no complaints, but rode
the long, weary way in silence. Arrived at the Mormon village, she
inquired her way, and proceeded to a neat cabin in the outskirts. In:nswer to her knock, the door was opened by'an alple-faced but


" LET ME LOOK TOWARD OLD ENGLAND BEFORE I DIE."
pleasant looking young Mormon Woman, with that flush complexion
and sort of florid beauty often seen among the young Saints.
" Does Henry Beatty live here? "
"Yes4 ma'am; will you walk in? "
"Are you his wife?" asked the strange lady, with rigid countenance,
and paying no heed to the polite invitation.




368


WESTERN WILDS.


"Yes, ma'am." (This with a slight courtesy.)  I'm his wife Desereta, hut he married my sister Nellie the same day. Maybe its her
you want to see. But she's with him now, up at the mine."
"No," was the reply. "I only wanted, to see who it was that had
caused Henry Beatty to forget his family and his God. But if there's
two of you, I know enough.  Good-day."   And she moved silently
back to the hotel, and took the return coach for Zion. 'No one inquired particularly about her; no one asked any questions about the
notice of divorce eight months before. The bishop was satisfied with
it, and the council had directed that "Brother Beatty be fellowshiped," and that was enough. "Mind your own business," was the
rule in Tooele as well as in Logan.
The late autumn found our strange friend lying on a lounge in an
eastern city, "only waiting till she should get strong enough to make
the voyage."  She had disposed of all her property in this blessed
land of equal rights and wholesome laws, and was going back to
monarchical England, where a man can not marry tvo wives in a
day, or a woman be divorced without knowing it.    Her Yankee
friends said her head was "turned" by her troubles, or she never
would have preferred despotism to liberty. Shle was but one of ten
thousand whom the laws of Utah-tacitly approved by the American
Congress-have crucified.
But she had not gained strength as fast as the doctor predicted.
She had, gazed out of the open window whole hours at the vessels in
the bay, but now she seemed to lack energy. Suddenly she spoke:
" Let me look toward Old England once more before I die."
The attendant raised her gently. She gazed long and lovingly over
the blue ocean, then lay down and, with one brief prayer for Henry,
passed away.
8       *       *      '* *.     *    *       x
Willie has struck chloride! Willie has struck chloride!" shouted
Marian, dancing into her mother's room with an open letter in her
hand, greatly astonishing that worthy woman, to whom this language was scarcely more intelligible than Greek. She had not read all
that long series of interesting letters, running through the year since
Willie Manson and his partner settled down on Lion Hill, to dig for
a fortune; and, in her ignorance, was about to ask who " chloride
was, and if he would strike back, when Marian continued:
"Willie has struck chloride! He can sell out for fifty thousand
dollars, and he's coming home right away and-and- " She considerately paused.




THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.


369


Marian had but one " mother" now. In the old Utah days she had
addressed her father's wives as " Auntie," according to the safe custom in vogue then; but since the other "Auntie " had found a home
somewhere else, and her father's house had but one mistress, she had
promoted her to be addressed as " Mother."
Yes, Manson had "struck chloride," and though the vein was not
so rich by some millions
of dollars as the sangruine
partners had expected,
they sold it for enough toCHLOR
satisfy Manson; and be-          j
for       e the autumn of 18701
had passed, he once more Ic
held Marian in his arms.dee
get fixed."i
And now I the writer longing ireased. She was desperately homehereof, am  embarrassed;                               d
for, if I24continue the
story, I can not dwell on
miners, Mormons and
Indians, mountains, mines
and adventures. The details of a marriage are
beyond my scope. Suffice
it, then, to say, that Willie
Manson and Marian Bri-;,
arly were made one, after
all their troubles, and contentedly settled down in
Iowa, determined t h e r e
to spend the remainder of
their days.                   "WILLIFE HAS S'IRUCK CHILORIDE."
And that firm resolution they, kept just six months.
For, when the south wind blew softly, in May, 1871, they looked
around them and missed something. They did not see the circling
peaks, their summits ever glistening with snow; nor the blue waves
of the Salt Lake, nor the crystal streams pouring from the hills; and,
as they looked into each other's faces, Marian expressed the desire of
both, saying: "What a glorious place Salt Lake will be when things
get fixed."
Once confessed, her longing increased. She was desperately homesick.  The troubles were forgotten, the joys remembered; distance
24




370


WESTERN WILDS.


blended her life in Utah into one pleasing whole. What was there in
this prairie State to take the place of her beloved mountains? Where
was the rocky cafton, with ever-varying beauty of gorge, crag, and
wooded slope? where the gray and blue peaks standing out sharply
against the rosy evening sky? where the Great Salt Lake, now spread
out like a molten mirror in the summer calm, now sparkling in the
light breeze' now tossing its white caps in the storm?  There was a
calm beauty in the rolling prairie; but where was the wild charm of
the Utah valley? The calm rivers had their pleasant features-for
Iowa people-but what could take the place of crystal streams dashing
down rocky cafions, of bright water-seeks gurgling by the road-side,
of the sacred Jordan and its mountain affluents?  There was no charm
in this land for the eye of a mountaineer; and soon Manson also confessed that, for good or ill, he must some day live in the shadow of the
Wasatch.
After that their progress was rapid.  They could not live away
from the mountains. And, as I sat in front of their tasteful cottage,
overlooking the city from the first "bench," and heard their story, I
did not wonder at their conclusion; for surely there are few places in
this world which so charm the resident as Salt Lake City. Drink of
its waters, walk its streets for one year, and you will ever long to
return. Give but good government, and intelligent society, and Utah
would be to me even as the home of the soul-Salt Lake City, the
particular spot at which I'would pitch my tent forever.




CHAPTER XXIII.


SWINGING 'ROUND THE CIRCLE.
ZION was hot in a double sense when I reached it in July, 1872.
The season was unusually warm; the Saints and Gentiles were conducting a bitter politico-religious campaign, and the nation was distracted by the spectacle of Horace Greeley running for President on
the Democratic ticket.  The Mormons all swore by Greeley, and
prophecies of his election were abundant.  He had visited them in
his overland journey of 1858, and out of his letters they had managed to pick many comforting passages; while the "squatter sovereignty " doctrine of Stephen A. Douglas had suited their position so
admirably, that they inevitably became zealous Democrats. The contest was not pleasant to a traveler, and, after a ten days' visit, I journeyed on to Sodi Springs, then ambitiously styled " The future Saratoga of the West."
Leaving Corinne, Sunday, August 4th, on a narrow-guage mule, I
spent the first night with a Mormon rancher in Cache Valley.  This
beautiful region was long the winter rendezvous of the North-west
Fur Company, and many are the legends of grand councils here with
Shoshone, Bannock and Uintah; of love-making between swarthy
trappers and dusky maidens; of grand revels, often ending in a free
fight, in which ordinary hostile divisions were ignored, and every man
went in for personal revenge.  Now it is the abode of 15,000 Mormons, and the granary of Utah.  The valley, or rather basin, is inclosed on all sides by lofty mountains, their summits tipped with snow
in mid-summer. Through it Bear River runs in many a winding maze
for seventy miles, and from all sides bright crystal affluents join the
main stream, each singing of the snowy heights whence it came. The
traveler along one side of the valley sees all the Mormon' villages on
the other side, each set back in a little cove, but those near him are
hidden by the projecting mountain spurs.
From the upper part of Cache (" concealed ") Valley, the road rises
to a rocky plateau.  There the Bear River makes a big bend to the
north, and the mountains, which have followed close on its eastern
bank for a hundred miles, give back, and we find here a broad, gip
(371),




372


TVESTERN WILDS.


valley some ten miles wide.  The floor, so to speak, of this valley is
iron; upon it is a heavy stratum of rich earth, and through it, in a
hundred places, the subterraneous waters and gases have forced their
way. The plain is dotted by soda mounds from five to thirty feet in
height, and every-where upon and among them are the soda-fountains.
Some boil furiously with a loud, bubbling noise and escape of gas;


SHOSHONEES WITH ANNUITY GOODS.
others show but a faint effervescence; some are always calm, and
never overflow, while others send out large and constant streams, and
still others sink a foot or two when the air is cool, and rise to an
overflow when it is warm.    The springs on the soda mounds are
mere tanks, but a few inches wide, sending out such faint streams that
all the solid contents are precipitated, and the water quite evaporated
before reaching the plain.
Some of the mounds have risen so high that the water has broken,
out elsewhere, and thus new mounds are being slowly built. In some
springs the chemical mixture is pure soda, in others pure iron, in still




STVINGIVG 'ROUND THE CIRCLE.


373


others iron, soda and salt mixed. The best tonic is from the Octagon Spring, containing about equal parts of iron and soda, with slight
admixture of other elements. Invalids insist that the first drink does
them good, and that they improve every day they use it.  On me its
chief effect was to create a marvelous appetite. The Ninety-percent Spring, which Gentiles also call the Anti-polygamy Spring, is
most heavily charged of all. Of the solid contents, ninety per cent. is
pure soda; the rest some mineral or salt which has strange effects on
the male human. A few quarts of it will destroy the strongest faith
in the necessity for polygamy. This lasts but a few days, however.
Hooper's Spring is the largest and perhaps the greatest curiosity.
It is a rod wide, and presents the appearance of an immense caldron
boiling furiously; but the water is very cool, and rather pleasant to
the taste.  The vale near by is covered with heavy grass, which lines
the spring and hangs into the water; on all sides rise the majestic
mountains, and from the pool a stream six feet wide and a foot deep
flows into Soda Creek.  The water contains nothing but soda, and all
of that it will hold in solution. Mixed with sugar of lemons it
makes a drink equal to the best from a patent fountain.
Near by, WVm. H. ooper, late Mormon delegate in Congress, has
a summer residence.  The elevation of the valley is some 6,500 feet
above sea-level, and the climate in August about like that of October
in the States.  Farther up the vale may be seen the Formation
Springs, where the dripping chemicals have molded a thousand fanciful shapes; and down near the river is Steamboat Spring, from
which the water bursts forth at brief intervals with a loud " cough,"
like the " scape" of a slowly moving distant steam-boat. In a score
of places in the bed of the river are springs emitting water loaded
with various minerals and gases, from which the bright bubbles play
upon the surface. A little way up the river are sulphur springs, and
over the mountain eastward is a wooded region abounding in game.
The vale itself, some ten miles square, seems set apart by nature as a
region of curiosities.  The only inhabitants arc a few Morrisite
Mormons, the remnants of some two hundred taken there by General
Connor in 1863; and the few Americans who hold an interest with
Mr. Hooper in the location.  The only hotel is a rambling log-cabin,
and all surroundings are rural and primitive in the extreme. But
when the narrow-guage road is completed there from Ogden, I fancy
this place will drop the prefix " future," and become at least the Saratoga of Utah and Idaho.
From my Idaho jaunt I returned to the Union Pacific, and late in
4




374


WESTERN WILDS.


August left Ogden for St. Louis in one of those rolling palaces which
make travel over this line such a delight. What a change from the
back of an ambling American horse, on which I made the tour of Arizona! And I could but ask myself, somewhat doubtfully, too: shall
I ever roll along the line of the Thirty-fifth Parallel Road in a Pullman palace, as I now ride where four years ago I toiled with mule
teams? The change would be no greater than I have seen here.
As I neared the Missouri I read that twenty persons had died of
sunstroke in one day at St. Louis. And I had spent most of the summer where one needed two blankets at night to keep him warm! I
concluded to wait a week at the delightful city of Lawrence, till nature should cool things off.  The same temperature in the East is
much more debilitating to one just from the mountains; it appears
more steamy and weakening than in the dry air of Utah and Arizona.
But the last night of August a tremendous thunder-storm swept over
Kansas and Missouri, and lowered the mercury twenty-five degrees!
So I visited St. Louis in comfort, and thence started to make the trip
over the Northern Pacific Railroad.
One day I lingered at Nauvoo, for I had long been curious to see
this old stronghold of the Mormons. Their elders are never weary of
telling the people that it is now a ruin, desolate as Tyre or Babylon.
I found it a beautiful town of some 3,000 people. It has the prettiest site in Illinois. The river makes a bend westward nearly in the
shape of a U; the point in the lower part is a mile wide, and lies
just high enough above the river for commercial convenience; and
thence the hill rises by gentle slopes for two miles eastward. At the
upper end of the flat on the river is a splendid steam-boat landing,
and about half way around the bend the rapids begin, giving a fine
front for manufacturing purposes. Here the Mormons had projected a
row of cotton mills; they were to bring the cotton up the river, and
with their own operatives, converted from the workshops of England,
build up a great manufacturing community. Could they have maintained peace with their neighbors, they would have had some fifteen
years to perfect this scheme before the railroad era superseded river
transportation, and Nauvoo would have had too great a start for the
tide to turn. They and their apologists of course maintain that the
Gentiles were altogether to blame for the breaking up of these fine
schemes; but when a man moves six or seven times, and quarrels
with the neighbors every time, as they did, I am inclined to conclude
that he takes the worst neighbor along with him every move.
After the Mormons came the Icarians, a curious but harmless set




SWINGING 'ROUND THE CIRCLE.


375


of visionaries. It was the era when communistic experiments were
in operation all over the country-the era immediately succeeding
"Brook Farm," Communia, and Robert Owen's New Harmony Society. The Icarians, under the lead of M. Cabet, wore a uniform, had
all things in common, and worked in detailed squads. But when one
man, or an executive board, has to choose what work every other man
shall do, it soon appears a most unnatural system as opposed to
" natural selection." Here was to be seen a former college professor
herding swine; there a Paris goldsmith driving oxen, and a wellknown scholar, crack-brained on socialistic theories, was made assistant sawyer at the society's mill. It cured him, however.
The Icarians failed, of course, and were in due time succeeded by a
colony of Bavarians and Westphalians, who have made a great success
of the wine manufacture. Where the great
Mormon   temple once
stood is now a fine vineyard, and not one of         r      fg
the original stones remains.  Three of the
neighboring houses are
built entirely o f t h
beautiful white rock,
and the rest has made
walls and foundations
all over town.   This
wonderful structure cost
between a half and
three-quarters of a million dollars in money
and labor, and the Icarians had proposed to fit     BURNING OF THE MORMON TEMPLE
it up as a social hall and school-room. But at 2 A. M. of November
10, 1848, it was found to be on fire, and before daylight every particle
of woodwork was destroyed. It was set on fire in the third story of
the steeple, one hundred and forty feet from the ground. The dry
pine burned like tinder; there was no mode of reaching the fire, and
in twenty minutes the whole wooden interior was a mass of flames.
In two hours nothing remained but hot walls, inclosing a bed of embers. At Montrose and Fort Madison, Iowa, they could distinguish
every house in Nauvoo, and the light was seen forty miles around.




.7fi


TP17r.Q7TPRAT TJ T nq.


r r  "xi.L   ~.A.t  m r P A.l.L,
Joe Agnew, of Pontoosuc, fourteen miles above Nauvoo, afterwards
confessed that he set it on fire. He had suffered at the hands of the
Mormons, and sworn no trace of them should cumber the soil of
Illinois.
The walls long stood in such perfect preservation that the citizens
determined again to refit it for an academy. But in November, 1850,
a fearful hurricane swept down the river, and threw down most of the
structure. From the deck of a Mississippi steamer Nauvoo, which
once had fourteen thousand inhabitants, now looks like a suburb of
retired country seats, stretching for two or three miles up a handsome
slope; and thousands yearly pass on the river admiring the rural beauty
of the place, but little thinking that a third of a century since it was
the largest city in Illinois, and the most notorious in America, the
chosen stronghold of a most peculiar faith and destined capital of
a vast religious empire.
Thence by steamer to Burlington, and thence by the Burlington &
Missouri River Railroad to Council Bluffs. There I took the northward route, and in due time arrived at Sioux City, which had greatly
improved in the year since 1 last visited it.  The "Hawkeyes,"
(State designation for Iowa people), are a progressive race; but the
" lay of the country" is such that their energy must ever tend to build
up a great State rather than any one great city. The growth of Iowa
in wealth and population is amazing, but she has no metropolis which
takes the place Chicago does in Illinois or St. Louis in Missouri.
Her development is destined to proceed on a different plan.
We staged it again to Yanktbn, along the line where the S. C. &
Y. Railroad now runs; and found the inhabitants hotly engaged in
the great job of saving the country. Dakota Territory has always
been noted for the heat and acrimony of her politics; and though the
Grant-Greeley campaign was marked for its bitterness, the storm in
the rest of the nation was as the balminess of a May morning compared with its fury in Dakota. Now, General McCook, Secretary of
the Territory, and one of the "Fighting McCook's," was the central
figure of a local quarrel. A year or two later he attacked a delicate
little banker named Wintermute, and pounded him almost to a jelly.
Wintermute walked out, procured a pistol, and returning, shot McCook dead in the ball-room! I could not join in the cry for vengeance which went over the country, for I knew the slayer to be a
naturally inoffensive man, who had been cruelly outraged. Most of
the Federal officials made it a personal matter to assist in the prosecution of Wintermute, but western juries are proverbially lenient




SWINGING 'ROUND THE CIRCLE.


377


in such cases. He was sentenced to a few years imprisonment; but
his delicate constitution could not survive the beating and the sentence, and consumption soon took him beyond the reach of earthly
courts. I shall ever maintain that he was the real victim of the
tragedy, and should never have been imprisoned.
Our party had various opinions as to the best way to see the
country on the North
Pacific line. The first
plan was to take a team
and go up the eason  as get- ernING OF SECRETARY MCOO
ting late. So this was in due time reconsidered. Thle next was to go
Cup the Missouri to the proposed crossing, and stage it across to the end
sidof the road. But soon came a steam-boat dowry the river with word
bythat navigation was closed for this year, though it was still early in
valley of James IRiver,
Septembn over the divide andecided to return to Sioux City, and go through
M~innlesota. A mall can't travel as. he pleases in the new North-west.
northward enough of stagingwn and concluded to try it by steamerRe
Riverdown to Sioux City. The distance by land is sity-five miles; by
ivwas threer a hundred and fifty. The time is just as it happens. You
miles; there were louno_
mustre start when the boat is ready, and tacountre your chances on board,
withsometimes ga settlemeing through in ten hours, sometimes i thirty. We
and the season was get-        KIL~LING OF SECRETARY M'COOI.
ting late. So this was in due time reconsidered.all forenoon, the low clay banks receding s to gorappidly thate Missouri to the pir natural ugliness was changed stage it across swiftly gliding viewthe end
of something nearly like beauty. The water iscame a littlsteam-boat don the thiker withan word
thcream, but not quite was closed for thick as pylaster, thand of a dirty yewas stillow colorly in
September; then we decided to return to Sioux City, and go fhrough
its nnesolid contents cnsisting of nearly equal partses inof fithe new clay and silt;
ut when takd enough of stagingrd and itconcluded to try it by steaImmedidown to Sioux City. The distance by land is si~ty-five miles; by
river a hundred and fifty. The time 'is' just as it happens. You
musately on t start whe river, the timberoat is resmalldy, and take your chances on board,
sometimes getting through in ten hours, sometimes in thirty. We
made splendid time all forenoon, the low clay banks receding so rapidly that their natural ugliness was changed to a swiftly gliding view
of something nearly like beauty. The water is a little thicker than
cream, but not quite as thick as plaster, and of a dirty yellow color,
its solid contents consisting of nearly equal parts of fine clay and silt;
but when taken aboard and settled, it 'is very palatable. Immediately on the river, the timber is small and scrubby, but a mile or so
back are fine forests of good-sized trees, for a mile or two, and behind
them the richest -prairie " bottom ' in the world, varying in width




378


WESTERN WILDS.


from five to twenty miles, and yielding to gentle foot-hills and wooded
bluffs. In three or four places the river spreads to a mile or more in
width, broken by sand-bars and low islands; there the boat usually
stuck fast for awhile, till the hands could " pole off," when she would
back out and try other channels till one was found passable.
At such times the captain cheered us with such appropriate remarks
as: " D-d channel was on that side when I came up. Thought the
river would take a sky-wash round the other way, judgin' from the
set ag'in that bluff. But there's nothing impossible under this administration. Howsomever, we'll make Sioux City by supper time, if we
don't fall down." This last was a facetious reference to the system of
sparring off with the "boat's crutches."  But we did "fall down"
about noon, running hard aground on the head of a sand island,
located probably where the channel was deepest a month before.
Then oaths, spars, "nigger-engine" and all the other available machinery
were set in operation; and after two hours of swearing, bell ringing,
and toil, the stern was got far enough into the current to swing
around; then all control of it was lost, and that end grounded below.
Then the bow was shoved off, swung around and stuck again; then
the stern made a half-circle swing, and thus on, in a series of swings
and " drags," over half-sunken trees, the boat groaning through all
her timbers like a thing possessed, we made a final swing off the lower
end of the island, and floated on. When they spar thus at both ends
they are said to " grasshopper" over the difficulty.
Reaching Sioux City, we found there had been a fearful murder,
two robberies and a street fight in which a dozen engaged, all within
twenty-four hours.  And still Sioux City was not happy.  Thence
we traveled north-east by way of the Sioux City & St. Paul Railroad, most of the day over a country with the same general character: a high and gently rolling prairie, without sloughs, with
very rich soil and rank grass, but no timber. Having passed the
"divide,"we soon entered upon the system of streams flowing into
the Minnesota River, and left the " Land of the Sleepy" for the
"Blue-water Land."  This poetic designation of Minnesota (from the
Sioux minne "water" and sota "blue"), is the most fitting name the
State could have received. In the year 1859, that State was my
residence, and even now my heart thrills at recollection of its summer beauties: green plains, tasteful groves, crystal lakes and clear
streams lively with fish. But here I ask the reader's permission to
turn back thirteen years. The notes in the next chapter are from observations both during my residence and later visits.




CHAPTER XXIV.


MINNESOTA.
IN July, 1859, I stood on the banks of Rum River and watched
the long trains of Bois Brules from Pembina, slowly descending
that stream to St. Paul. Their carts were made entirely of wood,
from bed and wheel to lynch-pin, and were drawn by oxen, one to
each cart in most cases; men, carts and animals splashed and clotted
with the black mud of the many sloughs they had crossed  The dry
season, neglect
and alternate
soaking    and
shrinking duringt of t                              w
the long journey                   s       h   b
through the divide " and lake
region,    had
brought the vehicles    to  a
wretched condition; and the
heavily dragging
wheels kept up a
wailing ce'eechy,
crawchy, creechy,
crawcvhy that
could be heard         PEOPLE FROM PEMBINA AND THEIR OX-CARTS,
nearly half a mile-" a cry for grease," which went to the soul.
The custom of these people, then, was to devote the late autumn and
early winter to hunting and trapping; the rest of the winter was
fairly divided between merry-making and preparing the furs and pelts
they had taken;and when the late May sunshine had brought forward
grass enough for their animals the trains departed southward. At St.
Paul they sold the proceeds of their last hunt, and laid in supplies for
the next year. The importance of the trade to St. Paul was great;
(3791




380


WESTERN WILDS.


for weeks one or more trains arrived daily, each with from ten to two
hundred carts, and each cart piled high with furs and skins.
Most of the drivers were of the pure Bois Brules ~tock, and merely
greeted me witli the quick, forward jerk of the head, and tlhe sharp
h bon-jour," which is the universal salutation in the Xorth-west; I)ut
here and there in the train was a cart of more than ordinary preten

WINTER IN T HE MINsNESOTA PINEEIES.
sions, generally drawn by two oxenl, and sometimes shielded by a
rude awning, containing one or two white men, factors of the fur
companies, or young Englishmen returning from the posts. Perhaps
a score of full-blood Chippeways accompanied the train. These are
a tall, well-made race of Indians, with a complexion redder than that
of the Sioux or Arapahoes, not so dark and beastly looking; and their
half-blood descendants share in all these peculiarities.
The words Bois Brules signify "burnt woods," and happily indicate




MINNESO TA.


381


the dark-red complexion of the half breeds. They and the Mexicans
constitute, I believe, the only permanent types resulting from the
union of Europeans with our Aborigines. As near as I can determine from their appearance and history, they are about half white,
half Indian, and have long maintained this blood in a condition of
purity. They live both in our Territory and over the line, number
thousands, and are a polite, gay and hospitable people, more musical
than thoughtful, more lively than intelligent. The neiglhboring whites
have corrupted the name into "Bob Ruly," as their Bois Blancs
(White Woods), slang for white men, has in turn become "Bob Long;"
so the original population of Pembina is made up of the two classes,
Bob Rulys and Bob Longs.
These are to be nentioned first, as the original settlers of Minnesota. Save the occasional missionary, Indian trader, hunter or government official, the country contained but few white men before 1845.
The Chippeways (Ojibbeways) dominated the northern section, the
Sioux the southern; and the "divide," between the drainage of Red
River and Minnesota, was their border and battle-ground for ages.
At last the whites began to crowd the Sioux, from the south; and the
Chippeways, under the lead of the great Pahya Goonsey-red Napoleon of the North-west-drove them beyond Red River, which remains the boundary of the two races. Then French settlements
slowly stretched down from the north, and American up from the
south; and in 1850-'55 came the great speculative era of Minnesota.
Every new country must have such a rise-and, alas! such a fall.
There was for years the humbug and hurrah of the "glorious free
and boundless West;" and in 1856 and '57 every thing was selling at
three or four times its actual value, and every third man was a millionaire in town lots. The crash came, and the wealthy, who had
indorsed for each other, fell like a row of bricks, each knocking down
the next. Every man rushed off to his lawyer to sue his neighbor,
compromise with his creditors, or put his property out of his hands.
The laws of different legislatures were in conflict; judges construed
them one way in one court, and in another directly the opposite. The
'Democratic administration of 1858 burdened the young State with a
heavy railroad debt, which the next administration, Republican, repudiated, and on top of all this came the grasshoppers.
The crop of 1856 was half destroyed; the next year every green
thing was eaten, the insects leaving the country black behind them.
The crop of 1858 did not half pay taxes and debts, and when I
arrived, in May, 1859, the mass of the people were living on corn



382


WESTERN WILDS.


bread, potatoes and "green truck," with an occasional mess of fish
or game. It was a nice country for a delicate young student, just
removed from school on account of bad health. I hoed corn, drove
teams, chopped wood and cultivated muscle. There was plenty to eat,
such as it was, but no luxuries, and before the close of the year I was.
again in sound health. But I have no desire to repeat the experience. There was too much pure Darwinism in such a country-"- natural selection and survival of the fittest."  The man who could not
accommodate himself rapidly to poverty and hardships, had to die
or emigrate.
Better crops came, and the settlers looked forward to the end of
their troubles, when the Sioux war of 1862 suddenly cut off their
hopes, and many of my friends in Blue-earth County were ruined, a
few losing their lives. But the country had natural wealth in abundance, and Yankee energy has triumphed over all difficulties. After
thirteen years I entered a rich and prosperous county by rail, where
I had tramped, knapsack in hand, through a comparative wilderness.
The Winnebago Reservation, unbroken by the plow when I first
crossed it, is now a populous farming district; and Mankato, then a
straggling village of six or eight hundred, is now a flourishing city of
five thousand people. But the effects of the "hard times" of 1857 -'59 still remain in many places, in the shape of interminable lawsuits,
unsettled titles, broken fortunes, neighborhood feuds, and men whose
energy is gone and their temper soured by disappointment. Many a
Minnesota woman is prematurely old from the troubles of that period,
and even in the faces of those I then knew as children I fancy I can
see some pinching lines which ought not to mar the visage of blooming youth, unpleasing reminders of a childhood passed without its
natural pleasures, and stinted because of parental poverty.
Thence to St. Paul I noted, with the pleasure of a pioneer, the great
improvements of thirteen years. Hamlets have become large towns;
unimportant towns have grown to cities. St. Paul I found nearly
trebled in size, and lively w'ith twenty thousand visitors attending the
State Fair. On the grounds were specimens of vegetation from every
spot for seven hundred miles north and west. Notable among these were
bunches of wild rice from the northern lakes; monster turnips and beets
from the line of the Northern Pacific; native grass from Red River
Valley, four feet long, and wheat grown at Fort Garry, Red River
Settlement, B. A., which yielded seventy bushels per acre. St. Pall
is in the south-eastern corner, and is the natural entrep6t, of a wheatgrowing region four hundred miles square. Fertile land continues to




MINNESO TA.


383


a point. two hundred miles north of our national boundary; there a
sandy desert sets in, and continues to the Arctic Circle.
This State and Dakota Territory have many features in common.
On the western border of the State, and forming a part of the boundary line between it and Dakota, are two lakes-Big Stone and Traverse.
The southern one, lying north-west and south-east is Big Stone, thirtyone miles long and only three-fourths to one and a half miles wide,
with bold shores fifty to eighty feet high-beautiful in summer, filled
with fish and abounding in water-fowl. On its shores 50,000 people
could witness a boat race over a course of ten miles or more. About
it linger many curious and wild traditions of the Indians. This lake
is simply a deep, wide river channel, resembling points on the Upper
Mississippi, where there is no valley or low land along the river.
Lake Traverse was originally a part of it-a continuation of it northward-resembling it in all respects. But now they are separated by
about four miles of low valley of the same width.
Into and through this valley runs a creek-head of the Minnesota
River-which rises in Dakota and flows close by the south end of
Lake Traverse and into Big Stone Lake, issuing again from its southeastern end, and joining the Mississippi near St. Paul. Tiavcrse is
not so large or long as Big Stone, and as one passes along its western
shore, the hills grow lower and recede from it. Its shores become
marshy, and it narrows to a lagoon, and finally into a stream or river
with scarcely a noticeable current. At Breckinridge, Minnesota, or
Wahpeton, Dakota, this stream is joined by the Otter Tail River, a
somewhat rapid stream of considerable volume. Where the two unite
(the one from Traverse is called the Bois des Sioux, or properly the
Sioux Wood River) both names cease, and the Red River of the North
begins. It is a river at once. From this point it flows three hundred
miles, in a right line, to Lake Winnepeg, in British America.
The fertile 'valley of Red River, is about a hundred and fifty miles
wide, half in the State and half in Dakota. Westward it yields to the
higher lands and soon to the barren couteau, fit for nothing but scant
pasturage. In the valley are now some of the largest wheat farms in
the world. There a dozen or more teams can be seen in early summer, following each other with successive furrows-plowing on the
same " land," which is a township. The furrows are six miles long.
They just make two rounds per day, going up and back, taking dinner and then repeating. One mounted man commands the whole, and
a cart with a few tools accompanies. If any thing befalls a plow or
team the driver turns out and lets the other pass, starting in again




384


WESTERN WILDS.


when the repair is made. Upon a large wheat field, in 1876, six selfbinding reapers workqd in like order.
But there are other novel features. The northern boundary is the
forty-ninth parallel. Hence the days in summer are noticeably long,
and the twilight in proportion, so that at Pembina, June 20, it is not
entirely dark much before 10 P. M., and early dawn begins but little
later than 2 A. M. People who desire to sleep long retire while it is
yet light, and darken the windows, very much as they do in Norway
or Iceland. But winter presents a sharp contrast. Daylight delays
till half-past nine, and dark comes soon after three. At Pembina
one is on the 49th degree north, while the sun in December is 23~ south
of the equator-total 72~, which from 90~ leaves 18~, the height of the
sun above the horizon at noon. The sky is often brilliantly clear for
weeks at a time, but there is not warmth enough in the sun to loosen
an icicle on the south side of the house.
But it is warm enough in summer. The winter before I was there,
Wright County enjoyed four months continuous sleighing. The next
June a pumpkin-vine I measured grew four and a half inches in
twenty-four hours. The snow is usually gone by the 10th of April;
the ground dries rapidly, and farmers often plow upon the south slope
while the snow still lies on the north slope.  The soil has a mixture
of black sand, and freezes so hard in winter that it never clods or
"bakes" in summer. The local records show that the year should be
divided thus: Winter, five months; spring, one month; summer, four
months; autumn, two months.  The summer heat would be very oppressive but for the breeze which is almost constant from the west and
south-west. If it changes to the east, there is apt to be a cold, chilly
rain; if it ceases, which is rare, the heat is so great the natives can
scarcely work.
A suggestion to tourists is in order.  Through the lakes to Duluth,
thence by the Northern Pacific Railroad to Fargo, thence down the
Red River-on which steamers ply all sumnmer-to Winnipeg and
Garry, is a summer excursion yielding more variety in men and manners than any that can be taken in the West.  The scenery is often
sublime, though not equal to that of the Rocky Mountains, and always beautiful.  The lakes are alive with fish; water-fowl are abundant. Here is a highway northward into the heart of the upper country, all the way easy of passage, and much cheaper than the trip to
California, or even to Colorado. There are splendid hotels at Duluth,
Brainard, Moorehead, Fargo and Glyndon, and tolerably good living
all the way from there down.  i Barring " the mosquitoes, which you




MINNESO TA.


385


can guard against by " taking the vail," as the residents do, there is no
physical inconvenience, and the air is. ever pure and bracing.  You
can enjoy the sensation of a day eighteen or twenty hours long, and
see the sun as low at noon in summer as it is in Ohio in winter.
With this hint I resume my personal narrative.
From St. Paul we took the cars northward along the left bank of
the Mississippi, passing
through  rich
prairies a n d
"oak openings," the latter looking
very much like            t
old orchards.
We are rarely
out of sight of
crystal lakes,                                            sy
wvan groveshich ad picturesque knolls, among which the tourist may spend
such a charmy. This is to be the great manufacturing city of this
to the Minneu                                    d w  rsota landscape.
The State contains ten thousand lakes, varying from  a
few  acres to                MINNEHAHA IN WINTER.
many miles in extent.  In the angle between the Mfississippi and
Mianesotaw Rivers is a region rich in scenery and historic interest.
sThere the Minnehaha plunges down from the prairie level to the Mississippi by the Minnehaha Falls, so well known to the world through
the genius of Longfellow. On the prairie level are crystal lakes, sylvan groves and picturesque knolls, among which the tourist may spend
weeks of enjoyment. The railroad ended at Sank Rapids, where we
halted for a d'y. This is to be the great manufacturing city of this
region, the rapids of the Mississippi furnishing unlimited water-power,
but as yet the citizens have d(one little beyond the preliminary wind
work. In 1859 this was thought to be the head of all navigation,
and only two little steamers plied above St. Anthony Falls; now
smaller boats run from  Sauk Rapids to Brainard, and sometimes


25




386


WESTERN WILDS.


farther. The Mississippi parts with its greatness slowly. Away up
here it still has the appearance of a big river.
From Sauk we take the stage-coach-a little jerky carrying ten
passengers, among them*a Sister and Mother Superior of the Order
of St. Francis. These were on their way to Belle Prairie, a mission
in the " Big Woods," to take charge of a frontier academy, and teach
letters, language and. religion to little half-breeds and Chippeways.
The Mother Superior was a lady of rare intelligence, just from Europe, where she had been nursing the sick'and wounded of the FrancoPrussian war. To my remark that I doubted the possibility of converting an Indian, she replied with great feeling: " Oh,. perhaps not
in my time, but surely soon, the race will know and accept the truth.
We work for God, and He will take care of it. If we convert one it
will repay us ten thousand fold."
Near midnight we left them at Belle Prairie, a hamlet of a few cabins, with a small school-house, and near by a chapel, its white cross
gleaming in the cold moonlight, fit symbol of the Sisters' life and
work. How wonderful is this wide extended power of the Church of
Rome! Who can travel beyond the reach of her world-embracing
arms? Alike on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Rio Grande,
I have seen the white cross of her chapels; and on the wild frontier
and in the hut of the savage have met her hardy missionaries, bronzed
by every sun and weather-beaten by the storms of every sky from
Pembina to Arizona. Is it any wonder, considering her celibate
clergy, who make the flock their family and the whole world their
home, and her holy orders of devoted women, to whom suffering and
self-denial are sweet for the sake of the Church-is it any wonder that
a quarter of a billion souls attest her power, and, to the reproach of
us Protestants, over half the Christian world still owns allegiance to
Rome?
Soon after we reached Crow Wing, and remained till near noon
next day. Thence an hour of rapid driving brought us into the Black
Pine Forest, in the center of which we found the "city" of Brainardon the Northern Pacific Railroad at last. The streets were lively
with representatives of three great races-for it was Sunday-and all
the railroad employes were in town to drink and trade.  The principal saloonatic had secured a rare attraction: a band of fifteen Chippeways were performing the " war dance " before his door, to the music
of a drum and buckskin tambourine, and drinks were going as fast as
two men could serve the crowd. After each dance the only " brave
who could speak English went around with the hat, exclaiming,




MINNESO TA.


'387


"Ten-n-cen-nts a man-n! ten-n-cen-nts a man-n!" the result being
money enough to treat the band to white sugar, of which they are
passionately fond.  Near by a white roul was trying to strike a bargain with a rather pretty Chippeway girl of fourteen years or so, who
was in charge of an older sister, a withered hag at least thirty years
old, and therefore past all show of comeliness, as is the nature of Indian women. Behind stood a half-breed squaw, about as "pretty" as
a wild-cat struck with a club. Ten rods away, afternoon service was
in progress at the Episcopal Church, the only one in the place; and
across the street a maison de joie kept open doors, its inmates at the
windows with a lavish display of mammiferous wealth.  No work was
in progress; most of the men had on clean shirts, and the holy Sabbath was strictly kept —in Far Western fashion.
The "city" had one great advantage over Union Pacific towns: the
houses were all of lumber, and the native pines still lined the streets.
Here the great Mississippi has at last shrunk to a stream no more
than a hundred yards wide and perhaps ten feet deep; a hundred
miles north would bring us into that circle of lakes-Itasca, Leech,
Cass and Plantagenet-which jointly form    its source.  Around,
mostly to the east, are ten thouisand square miles covered with the
white and yellow varieties of Norway pine, constituting the great
wealth of Upper Minnesota.  Next morning a lowering sky gave notice that the first storm of the season was at hand, and as the train
moved westward the air hinted of snow.  For seventy-five miles the
country is nearly worthless for agricultural purposes; then we move
down a gentle slope, and enter the fertile valley of Red River. The
little lakes are beautiful. In winter they are frozen almost solid, and
then is the best time for freighting; the sled routes take a direct line
from point to point without regard to lakes or sloughs.
Moorehead, on the eastern bank of Red River, is the end of a passenger division, and the nominal head of navigation; but it is only in
the months of June and July that any steamers run to that point.
Frog Point, sixty miles below (northward), is the head of navigation
for the rest of the summer, though boats rarely ply before the latter
part of May. As Red River has a general course due north, the thaw
occurs at the head first, and forces a great break up and massing of the
ice down at Fort Garry and other ports in Winnepeg.  Straw-ticks,
beef, bread and potatoes could be had for $2.00 per day in either of
tle new frame hotels then adorning Moorehead; but there was nothing to be seen requiring more than a night's stay.  Omnibuses Were
not, so we carried our baggage a mile, across the bridge and through




388


WESTERN WILDS.


Fargo, Dakota, to the construction train, on which we traversed the
last hundred miles of the road.    For fifty miles west of Red
River the country appears as level as the calm ocean; the rank grass
above, and the black soil below, as shown in the cuts, indicate great
fertility. The biting wind from the north-west brought a chilling
rain, and after it sleet and finally snow, which last was a great improvement on the sleet.' We had been assured by Jay Cooke that
"the isothermal line takes,a great northward deflection west of the
Great Lakes," giving this a mild climate; but a snow storm in September did not indicate it.
We crossed the Shyene River twice, and soon after ran through the
edge of Salt Lake-so called, though little like the great one in Utah.
It appears to be about five miles long, is thickly impregnated with
salt and alkali, and has an outlet only in very wet weather. The terminus of the road was then at Jimtown, near the western limit of fertile land. The cold was severe and the wind blowing almost a hurricane.  As my blue fingers stiffened around the handle of my valise,
and the canvas town clattered in the wind as if it would fly away, the
thermometer standing at 28~, and the air full of flying snow, I was inclined to set down most I had heard about this "( mild and salubrious
climate" as the exuberance of a playful fancy. But in a day ox; two
the storm yielded to sunshine, October came in gloriously, and good
weather continued a month longer. The storm prevented our excursion beyond the terminus, but from abundant testimony I am convinced there is little to see but rolling plains scantily clothed with
grass, alkali flats and sand-hills. The fertile land lies along the eastern border.
From  Jimtown eastward to Duluth developed no new features.
First we had a hundred miles of Red River Valley to Fargo and
Moorehead; fifty miles of the same on the eastern side; then the rise
to Detroit lakes, and then the half-barren strip of marsh and pine,
tamarack and scrub-oak flat, till we got within seventy-five miles of
Duluth. Thence the country-rapidly improved; the soil and timber
were fine, and scenery on the St. Louis River approaching the grand.
Duluth had become historic-it is more historic than commercial, still,
for that matter. "The Zenith City of the unsalted seas," as the local
poets modestly styled it, did not appear to advantage just after a September snow-storm; but it was lively with immigrants, colony agents,
real estate speculators, travelers and freighters.
Since then the German-Russian Mennonites have been pouring into
Southern Dakota by thousands, and it is evident the future population




MINNESO TA.


389


of our new North-west will consist largely of Scandinavians and kindred races.  They are wheat-eaters, Bible-readers, and Calvinists;
they establish schools and     __      _
churches, are anchored to      o Eaa
the soil, and constitute a  _g d_ st____ __o            t
conservative and most de-                  — I
sirable class of citizens. _                     _An   old  travclcr relates  -        i.
that he was toiling over
the black  sandy prairie,
one of the hottest days of
their hot but short summer, when to his joy he
came upon a dirt-roofed
log-house with the word
ICE in prominent letters.
on the right side- of the                        ar i '
door.  Drawing near with
thirsty haste he saw on the.o
left side, in smaller, dim-                         l
mer 1 e t t e r s the word        DALLES OF ST. LOUIS RIVER.
POSTOFF. A Russian or Swedish name, he thought, and called for
ice-water. The woman, ignorant of English, handed him a bundle of
letters with instructions, in pantomime, to pick out what belonged tr
him! Re made out after a lengthy discussion with the woman that the
two signs were to be read together, and meant POST-OFFICE.
I have sufficiently described the climate of our new North-west;
it is severe but healthful.  There has been a deal of miscellaneous lying on this subject.   Storms of fifty hours' duration
are not uncommon even in Nebraska; and at Cheyenne I have experienced weather cold enough to freeze the most hardy animals if unsheltered.  Five hundred miles south of the Northern Pacific I have
seen cattle frozen stiff in their tracks, horses left in the spring with
only the stump of a tail, birds fallen dead from the air in'cold wind
storms, Indians without nose enough left to blow after a winter's journey, and buffalo by tens of thousands literally frozen to death on the
plains. But settlers can provide against storms and cold; experience
shows that man comes to perfection in such climates, and the old resident can truthfully say,
"Man is the noblest growth our realms supply;
And souls are ripened in our Northern sky."




CHAPTER XXV.


THE WAY TO OREGON.
BROWN October found me again rolling through Iowa, in the
palace cars of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, on my
way to Oregon, after a brief visit to the States. The four years and
a half since I crossed the State on foot had added three hundred thousand to its population, and a thousand miles to its working railroads.
And still there is room. The State still has vacant land enough for
two million farmers.
Westward from Omaha there had also been great changes. In 1868
we'ran out into open prairie soon after leaving Fremont; now there is
a nearly continuous line of farms on both sides of the railroad as far as
Loup Fork. Beyond, cattle ranches multiply, and but a few years will
elapse till all this section of the high plains will be utilized by stockgrbwers. It is claimed that as ranches increase and farms are opened
the climate changes, grows more moist, and thus carries the border of
fertile land farther west; but, on this point, I will suspend judgment.
My fourteenth trip over the Union Pacific Railroad was more pleasant
than any previous one. The brown plains east of the mountains were
just as brown, the red hills and alkali deserts of Wyoming quite as
monotonous; but the sublime scenery of Echo and Weber Canlons was
glorified by the rich hues of autumn, and over all the gray-brown
landscape of the plains, hung the soft haze of what would be Indian
summer at the East.
In Utah I found Saint and Gentile in their normal condition of
attack and defense.  First one side got a blow ahead, and then the
other, like a pair of badly-matched oxen; or, as we used to say in
Indiana: ( Like a half-sled on ice." It had grown monotonous, and,
after a few days' rest in Salt Lake and Corinne, I took passage in one
of the new silver palace cars of the Central Pacific.  In them travel is
a luxury; one eats, drinks, smokes, sleeps, reads, or writes at the rate
of twenty miles an hour; free to look at the scenery where it deserves
it, and with abundant enjoyment indoors where it does not. November 1st we found the Nevada Desert very bleak, and the Sierras fast
hMing covered with snow. Between Truckee and Cape Horn the road
(30)


a




THE WAY TO OREGON.


391


is protected by forty miles of snow-sheds, the same of which the
British traveler complained-" Blarsted long depot; longest I ever
saw!"  They continue down the western slope to an elevation of only
4,500 feet above the sea, where there is no danger of a blockade; and
cost a million and a half. No snow can fall sufficient to block the
road, as they are
built against the:
slope as to shed
the snow hnto the
deep valleys.
At an elevation
of 3,000 feet, we
twere out of the region of snow, and
soon after among
the brilliant leaves
ani yellow     g r a        sts
which m   ark                 the sher te
autumn scenery of
the Pacific Coast.
Only two light
show#ers have fallen; the stimulating          BLUE CAON —SIERRA NEVADA.
air and cloudless sky show that the rainy season has not fairly set in.
At'Sacramento I find great difference of opinion as to the better route
to Oregon, by land or water, by the weariness of stage-coach pounding,
or the pains and perils of~sea-sickn&ss.  In order to give an unbiased
opinion, I decided to go by land and return by sea. Through tickets
from Sacramento to Portland, by land, can be had for forty-five dollars; by sea, for ten dollars less. The railroad terminus was then at
Reading, a hundred and seventy-five miles from Sacramento; thence
one must stage it two hundred and eighty miles to the southern terminus of the f regon Railroad. The autumn rains came on in due
order, and, as our train moved up the Sacramento River, the summerdried grass was taking on a velvety brown, with rare patches of faint
green. Northward, signs of fertility increased; and, at Chico, the
face of nature was so beautiful, that I halted for a day.
Here General John Bidwell has a ranche of some 20,000 acres, one
of the finest in California. The plains of the Sacramento have a varying width of from twenty-five to fifty miles, between the foot-hills of
V '




392


WESTERN WILDS.


the Sierra and Coast Range; and his ranche occupies the richest portion of this strip. He is a pioneer of the pioneers, having come to
California in 1846, two years before the discovery of gold. The same
year came Governor Boggs and party, from Missouri; Edwin M. Bryant, first American alcalde of San Francisco, and the unfortunate Donner party, whose sufferings and fate have laid the foundation for many
a thrilling romance. At least five thousand Americans had crossed
the plains and settled in California before the "great rush" of 1849.
They all engaged in cattle-raising, the sole business of the native
Mexicans; for, even as late as 1850, few people believed.that these
dry plains would admit of regular farming. A few of them got possession ot old Mexican grants, the titles to which were afterwards confirmed by treaty, and have since been sustained by the Supreme Court
of the United States. Hence that oppressive land monopoly, which is
now the worst hinderance to the development of California.
On General Bidwell's ranche are grown all the roots and grains of
the temperate zones; besides fifty varieties of fruit, from the little
black grape of the North to the fig of the tropics.. He had already
made the manufacture of raisins a success, and wine can be produced
almost as cheaply as cider in Ohio. I find all the wines of California
very agreeable to the taste, and most of them healthful. But the old
resident seldom drinks wine. At every hotel the salutation in cool
weather is, "Walk right up to the bar-warm you up for four bits, and
heat you red hot for a dollar."  This is a "survival" of the tastes
of early settlers, who worked hard with pick and shovel, lived on
bread, beef, pork, and beans, and did not taste milk, wine, or fresh
vegetables for years together.
As we walked around the grounds adjacent to the Bidwell mansion,
we saw oranges, olives, and pomegranates growing luxuriantly, while
the borders were a brilliant maze of wliite and red, diversified by the
branching palm, pampas grass ten feet high, with beautiful white
plumes, and the delicate tints of the giant oleander. Workmen were
busy covering the young orange trees, which must be shielded from
the coldest winds during the first three or four years, but on the fullgrown trees the growing oranges were nearly of full size, the green
rind beginning to change to a pale yellow. And yet, fifteen hundred
miles straight east of this, at my old home, snow is fast covering the
fields, and no green-growing plant will delight the eye for months to
come.
At Reading, I tarried again, making pleasant excursions among the
surrounding hills and valleys, the most pleasant to Shasta City.




. THE WAY TO OREGON.


393


This region was the range of the poet Joaquin Miller, during the
wild days in which he absorbed poetry from free nature, and found
inspiration in the companionship of Shasta squaws. The county records contain papers of strange import as to his reputation. The worst
accusation against him is of stealing a horse; but his friends maintain
that the owner of the horse owed Miller a debt which the latter
could not collect, and therefore levied on the property in a somewhat
irregular way. Be that as it may, the grand jury at Shasta found a
bill of indictment against him; he was in jail for some time, then
broke out and fled to Oregon. Joaquin's native wife was of the Pitt
River band of Diggers, and she now lives near there with an old
mountaineer named Brock. This man and Miller were crack shots,
and supplied themselves and brown families plentifully with game,
living in all other respects as the Indians do. The poetry in Joaquin
(wvhose real name, by the way, is John Heiner Miller) worked out in
very odd ways for some years. The most charitable opinion in
Shasta is, that he was then slightly " cracked," with a crazy affectation
to imitate the heroes of Spanish romance. His name was adopted
from that of Joaquin Murietta, a noted outlaw, who was long the
terror of the Joaquin River region. He was of the " dashing, chivalrouss" Claude Duval style of bandits, spending his gains freely among
the Mexican senoritas; and the character fascinated Miller.
From what I saw of the Shasta and Pitt River squaws, I should
say a man must needs be very crazy to live with one of them. The
sight or smell of most of them would turn the stomach of any other
than a poet. Their chief luxury is dried and tainted salmon. White
men not only learn to eat it, but are said to like it even more tainted
than do the Indians. Many old mountaineers are scattered through
these hills, each living with a squaw; and it is common testimony that
after a white man has lived with a squaw some years, he would not
leave her for the best white woman in the country. They learn to do
housework after a fashion, and on gala days rig out in hoops and
waterfalls of most fantastic pattern. But they boil or roast the carcasses of their dead relatives; mix the grease with tar, and mnat it on
their heads and necks, making a sort of helmet, with only the eyes
and mouth free; then for seven weeks they howl on the hill-tops every
morning and evening to scare away the evil spirits. I saw one of
these "in mourning," and am convinced that if she don't scare the
devil away, he must be a spirit of some nerve. A white man disposed to Indian life, can adept all their customs in six months, while
an Indian can not adopt ours in fifty years. Arithmetically speaking,




394


WESTERN WILDS.


it is a hundred times as easy for a white mall to go wild as for an
Indian to become really civilized. We left Reading by stage at
one o'clock in the morning, seven
men in a little coach, which carried
also seventeen hundred pounds of de~ A   layed mail. On top, rear, and "boot,"
it was piled as long as it colid be
strapped fast, and half the inside was
i   filled with it. The passes ahead were
fast filling with snow, and delayed mail
and passengers were scattered at every
point along tle route. At daylight we
crossed Pitt River, where the valley
of the Sacramento may be said to end,
/  as the spurs of the Sierras put out
E J westward toward the Coast Range, and,
(           ~ in mining parlance, "pinch in" upon
L the plain.  Pitt River is really the
3   Upper Sacramento, being the largest
-,   of the confluent streams, and preserv-,N l,  g ing a general course south-westward,
i  after emerging from  the mountains., i      gAlong its right blu.ff   we preserved
w a general north-east course all day.
4  Again and again we thought we had
left it, as the coach turned directly
away and labored up mountainous
< passes, and along frightful " dugways"
8 for miles, to an elevation of hundreds
of feet above the stream; then we
would turn to the right, and come
thundering down a long rocky grade
for two or three miles to the water's
edge again.  And every time we appeared to be coming back to the same
place; there were the same timbered
hills and rocky bluffs, perpendicular
on one side of the stream and sloping
on the other; the same immense gray
bowlders,,rocky islands and towers in
the bed of the stream, and    the same white foaming     rapids.




THE FWA Y TO OREGON.


395


For fifty miles the river is a series of cascades; and though,
through our ups and downs, we but kept even with the stream,
we must have been gaining rapidly in general elevation.    The
sun rose clear, and the bright day and sublime scenery made us
forget the fatigues of the way. The immense timber through which
this road runs is a constant astonishment to the traveler. For two
hundred miles, broken only by two or three open spaces, stretches a
vast forest of firs and pines of every diameter, from one to ten feet.
Southward the big trees grow more numerous, till they culminate in
the Calaveras Grove and the thirty-two-feet stump, on which there
is room for a dancing party, with musicians and spectators. Here is
inexhaustible wealth in lumber. The fir is harder to work than the
pine, but more durable. With good facilities for shipping, every acre
of this forest would be worth two hundred dollars.
Near night we left the river, and toiled slowly up-hill for two hours
to a mountain plateau. To our right was Mount Shasta, 14,400 feet
high, a scene of indescribable beauty in the cold, clear moonlight.
The. lower portion looked like polished marble, shading off by degrees
to the bright green of the pine forests on the foot-hills; the summit,
covered nearly all theyear with snow and ice, shone a monument of
dazzling whiteness. But sentiment was soon overpowered by sense, as
the drivers had lost time, and now took advantage of the down-grade;
the coach bumped over great bowlders, throwing us against the roof
and back against the seats till phrenological development went on at
both ends with uncomfortable rapidity.  Lean men can not endure
coaching like. plump ones; and if Darwinism be true, in my many
years of travel I should have "developed" a series of gristle-pads.
Our present anatomy is all very well for home life in a level country;
for mountaineering I could suggest an improvement: a cast-iron backbone with a hinge in it, terminating below in a sole-leather copperlined flap.
At Yreka I had to stop and rest between stages; and, after nine
hours' sleep, still felt as if I had been pounded all over with a clapboard. Yreka has the coldest climate of any city in California, and a
location of wonderful beauty. From the town a gently undulating
valley extends in every direction, rising by a succession of timbered
foot-hills to the lofty mountains, whose notched and pointed summits,
now dazzling white with snow, seem to join the blue heavens or lose
themselves ip clouds. But it is only on the points of the mountains
that any mist can be seen; above us the sky is cloudless, and the cool
air is exhilarating as some ethereal gas. A few miles eastward was the


*  if




396


WESTERN WILDS.


home of the Modocs, and soon after my visit this region became no
torious for that tempest-in-a-teapot, the "Modoc War."  These are
the gentle savages with whom Walk-in Miller claims to have affiliated,
at mention of which claim the old pioneers smile meaningly, with a
closure of the left optic..Wyeka was the original Indian name; for no Indian or Chinaman
can pronounce the letter r. There is a tradition that a Dutch baker
painted the
present
name    on
his sign by
mistake,
and it was
noted that
Y Y REKA
BAKERY"
spelt the
same both
ways,which
struck the
citizens as
such a happy combination that
the name
was retained by general consent. Similarly, Siskiyou,name
of the counVIEW IN THE MODOC COUNTRY.           ty first organized, resulted from the attempts of miners to pronounce the French
Six Cailloux (" six bowlders "), as the district was called, from six immense rocks in the river.  As most of the early American settlers
learned French and Indian by the aid of "sleeping dictionaries," the
pronunciation may not be strictly academic.  Like all old mining
counties, this is heavily taxed. An unsettled population of twenty
thousand often organized a California county, voted magnificent public
works, and issued bonds to complete themn; in no long time the miners




THE WA Y TO OREGON.


397


mostly left, and a smaller community of farmers, graziers and vinegrowers have to pay the debt and run the county.
Early next morning we took the coach again, and soon after daylight crossed the Klamath River by a "swing-ferry."  The valley
amounts to but little, as the river runs between rugged hills through
most of its course; but on its headwaters is the greatest game district
in the West, perhaps in the world. All varieties of game abound, and
the cool waters of Klamath Lake are alive with trout.  Only its remote and inaccessible position prevents its being a place of great resort. Soon after we enter Oregon, and the first impression is that the
State is covered by one immense and' gloomy. forest.  In places the
very daylight seemed to vanish into a mild twilight, and in the few
"clearings" we passed through, the sunshine was novel and enjoyable.
After noon the country began to show signs of improvement; settlers'
cabins became numerous, and, after running down a narrow canon, we
came out into the beautiful valley of Rogue River.  Here is said
to be the finest climate in Oregon, and to wearied passengers just
over the mountains the sight was a revelation of beauty. Where we
enter, the valley is no more than two miles wide, but as we go down
it widens gradually to fifteen or twenty, while on every hand appear
fine farms, thrifty orchards, great piles of red and yellow apples of
wondrous size, barns full of wheat, and fine stock, and we feel with
delight that we are out of the mountains and " in the settlements."
Thopgh far retired from the road, the mountains still appear rugged
and lofty, sending out a succession of rocky spurs-one every two or
three miles-and between these, far back into the hills, extend most
beautiful coves.  The air was mild, the roads firm and smooth, and
the coach rolled along with just enough of motion to give varietyand appetite.
Plows were running in the fields, "breaking summer fallow for
spring wheat," said the natives; and the farm work showed that no
freeze was to be apprehended for some time.  Another night's travel
on the mountains, and daylight came slowly upon us in the dense
woods lying between Cow Creek and the South Umpqua. The sun's
rays did not reach us through the dense and leafy mass above till
nearly noon, and'soon after we entered on a timbered cafion down
which we bumped and thumped for four hours, making but fifteen
miles.  The coach alone would have been too heavy a load for the
four horses, every one of which filled Isaiah's description of the
i]atural man: their whole heads were sick and their whole hearts
4




398


WESTERN WILDS.


faint; and from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot they were
wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
At Cafionville we ran out into the Umpqua Valley, at a point
where the river comes in from the east and turns due north.  After
crossing we traveled the rest of the day down the east bank.  Many
clear and pretty streams dash down from the Cascade Range, cross
our road and empty into the Umpqua.   The range bends in towards
the coast, and hence none of these valleys are as wide as that of the
Sacramento. Reaching Roseburgh at dark, we found that the Oregon
and California Railroad had just been completed to that point, saving
us eighteen miles of the staging we had expected.  Next day was
Sunday, and I can not recall a more pleasant Sabbath than this, which
we spent in a slow ride down to Portland. Roseburgh is south of the
"divide" and on the slope towards the Klamath; but the intermediate
ridges are not so high as those behind us, and far more pleasant as seen
from the inside of a car. Forty miles brought us fairly into the Willamette Valley, the largest body of good land in Oregon, containing
nearly six thousand square miles. The soil is wonderful, being in many
places from six to thirty feet in depth. The high Cascade Range shuts
off all hard winter storms; the lower Coast Range on the west only admits the mildest airs of the Pacific; the summers never get so dry or hot
as in California; all the rains are gentle, and destructive storms and
freshets are unknown. The surprisingly slow development of such a
region can only be accounted for by the method of settlement, the first
comers getting title to nearly all the land.  The new settlers eagerly
seize on every chance for improvement, and are doing considerable;
but it is complained that these old fellows "hold on to the land like
burrs, and die mighty slow." And from longer experience with the
"first families," I am driven to the painful conclusion, that about
a hundred first-class funerals would prove of great 'advantage to
Oregon.
In the lower portions of the valley the road traverses what are
called "Beaver Lands."   The theory of their, origin is that the
beavet's, by damming up the shallow creeks and building their houses
in them, caused the beds and adjacent low lands to overflow and fill
with accumulations of earthy matter and decayed vegetable deposits.
This must have been the work of many centuries, and has left a soil
which only grows more fertile by cultivation. But these lands are
found nowhere but in the Willamette Valley, and do not altogether
exceed twenty thousand acres.
I reached Portland at sunset of a beautiful sabbath evening-not at




TIHE WAY TO OREGON.                     399
all suggestive of the fog and rain which are generally attributed to
this climate. For two days the weather was delightful, though everybody spoke of it as the coldest they had ever experienced. The wind
was from the north-west, very gentle, the sky clear, and ice half an
inch thick formed on the.gutters-a rare thing in Portland.  The
third evening the thermometer rose from 28~ to 38~, and next morning I wondered why I had waked and was so restless in the night.
I turned over suddenly, and an old shot wound in the knee gave
me a fearful wrench.  Then I felt something like ague along my
backbone. I struck a match, looked at my watch, and it was after
8 o'clock.
Such a fog!  One could chew it up and spit it out.  With a sharp
knife it might be cut out in chunks and stored for dry weather.
They say the winters here are healthful.  It must be for differently
constituted lungs fromn mine. It don't seem to me like breathing; it
is rather a sort of pulmonic swallowing.  Only the smoke and dust
of a great city here is needed to give Portland occasional fogs filly equal
to those of London.  This fog continued till noon, then broke away,
and a gentle drizzle finished the day. Portlanders all agree that they
have the finest climate in the world in summer, and part of the
spring; but admit that it is rather unpleasant in the winter or rainy
season. From November till March every wind brings rain, unless it
be from the north-west.  In that case the clouds sail away over the
Cascade Range, the mercury falls to 35~ or below, and the sky is clear
for a brief space. But let the mercury rise to 40~, and rain comes
again. Sometimes there.is a continuous patter for six weeks, the air
being chilly and penetrating.  The summers are never so hot and dry
as in California; the hills are covered with timber, and every thing
grows without irrigation.
One week sufficed to conclude my business in Oregon, but before
leaving a few general notes are in order.  Portland is on the west
bank of the Willamette (pro. Wil-lam-et), twelve miles above its
mouth and near the head of tide-water. But the Columbia often rises
so as to cause backwater, giving the Willamette a variation of thirtytwo feet. Ocean steamers load at the wharf, and the place has direct
water communication with all the ports of the world, the chief exports
being wheat, lumber, beef and salmon. All the older portion of the
city is very beautifully improved; elegant residences abound, with
many evidences of taste and wealth.  The location is picturesque.
The Cascade Range is only occasionally visible, but Mount Hood
rears its snowy summit sixty miles eastward, and looks as if it were just




400


MTWESTERN WILDS.


out of town. Mount Saint Helens is sometimes in good view, though
eighty miles to the north-east. All the hills around the city arc covered with heavy timber, and in town every street is double lined with
shade trees.
Of the 25,000 people in Portland, one-sixth are Chinamen. They
are porters, washer-men, railroad laborers, cigar makers, and artisans
of other sorts, with an occasional member of the higher caste engaged
in trade. Sam Poy Lahong has seven stores on the Pacific Coast, his
head-quarters being at Portland. I made his acquaintance, and found
him a gentleman of great intelligence.  The firm of Tung, Duck,
Chung & Co., charter vessels and import extensively from China, as
do some smaller firms. Other foreigners are scarce; the Jews predominate. Portland is almost exclusively an American city, in fact, a
Yankee settlement; though most of the people in the country are
from Missouri and other South-western States.  The city seems to
have all the enterprise which the State at large lacks. The rural
"web-foot," as the residents are called, in ironical allusion to the
climate, is sui generis: there is a distinctively Oregonian look about
all the natives and old residents which is hard to describe. Certainly
they are not an enterprising people. They drifted in here all along
from 1835 to 1855, and some of them at an even earlier period, when
many western Americans came to the Pacific Coast to engage in cattleraising-not considering the country fit for much else.  They left
Missouri and Illinois-most of them-because those States were even
then "too crowded" for them, and they wanted to get away where
"they was plenty o' range and plenty o' game," and have a good, easy
time. With one team to each family (time being no object to such
people) it costs them nothing to move; and the peculiar land laws
applied to Oregon gave them every advantage, and have been a serious
hinderance to settlement ever since. Each single male settler could
acquire title to three hundred and twenty acres, and each married man
to six hundred and forty; there were besides some inducements to
v families, so that the birth of a child was a pecuniary advantage to the
parents. The result was that hundreds of girls of eleven, twelve and
thirteen years of age were married; with the further result, that all
this fine land is owned in vast bodies by these old families, many of
whom will neither sell, improve, nor hire any one else to improve.
They acknowledge their own laziness, and talk about it so goodhumoredly that one is compelled to sympathize with them.
The steamer on which I had engaged passage down the coast was
to start at dark, but going on board I was informed that we should




THE WA Y TO OREGON.                   401
delay till next day, "' to get high tide over the bar at the mouth of the
Columbia." So my friends made an evening of it to see me off properly, and gave me a world of good advice about sea-sickness. Having
properly prepared my nerves, and emptied fourteen bottles of "Bass,"
they saw me aboard, with the parting words: "Good-bye, Jonah; and
when you begin to heave, think of us! " An "old salt " then gave me
his advice: "Take half a dozen limes in your pocket, eat one whenever you begin to feel giddy, wrap up well and walk about, stick to
the deck with me, and I'll insure you." This I did, and found it' the
best plan.
At daylight, the bang of a six-pounder on the bow aroused me from
dreams of shipwreck, and pretty soon the "hoh-he-hoh" of the seamen's chorus, and the rattle of lines and jingle of bells announced
that we were off. The easy motion of the vessel lulled me to another
nap of an hour, from which I awoke to find that we were dead stillneither tied nor anchored, but swinging with the current, and buried in
a fog, so dense that I had to feel my way along the berths to the cabin
door. We were near the mouth of the Willamette, and were to stay
there any time from one to twenty-four hours. Hour by hour the fog
slowly lifted, drizzle and mist taking its place, and chilling one to the
very bones. The cabin passengers crowded around the stoves, while
the Chinese and other steerage passengers walked the deck, or stood
around the smoke-stacks for warmth; the melancholy "Johns," with
glazed caps and black pig-tails, looking like a lot of half-drowned
crows. About 2 P. M., blue spots began to appear, bright rays broke
through the gloom, a light wind was felt from the north-west, and
soon the fog was sailing away in fleecy clouds toward the Cascade
Range.
We were soon out in the Columbia, and at once surrounded by large
flocks of ducks and wild geese, with an occasional gull or walloon.
At dark we reached the principal salmon fisheries, stopped for the
night, and took on a hundred tons of canned salmon-" No put up at
all," the clerk said. The amphibious race who follow the calling of
fishermen on the lower Columbia, know all about salmon and next to
nothing of any thing else. Three hours persistent questioning among
them developed these facts. The salmon vary in weight from five to
thirty pounds, twelve being a fair average.  When they enter the
Columbia from the ocean, their meat is of a bright red color; every
mile they go up stream they get poorer, and their meat whiter. In
the Willamette it is a pale vermillion, further up almost white; but
no Oregonian will eat of salmon taken above the mouth of the Willa26




402


WESTENV WILDS.


mette.  They continue up stream as far as possible, and have been
seen twelve hundred miles from the ocean. On all the rapids they are
found "bucking against the stream;" where only the most daring
boatmen venture, they glide swiftly up over the rocks; and where
man descends at the risk of his life, the graceful salmon is seen shining through the foaming water. Having reached the highest attaina~;-  _ —=7.._...
RAPIDS ON THE UPPER COLUMBIA.
ble point, on whatever stream they turn into, they spawn among the
gravel and on the rocks, where the water is but two or three inches
deep. Then they die by thousands, and masses of dead salmon are
cast ashore, or found floating in the eddies. It was thought they all
died; but the fishermen say it is now known that many of the old
ones survive to return to the ocean, though they float sluggishly with
the current, keeping very low in the water. Next year the young
ones go out to the ocean in vast schools, and occasionally one of them
is caught with a hook, but not often. The meat of the salmon is
poison to a dog. There is a remarkable difference between various
localities. At places on Puget Sound, the salmon is not fit to eat; at
others, it is inferior, but still palatable. The Columbia takes precedence of all points on the coast.
We spent three hours at Astoria, a curious old town strung along
under the wooded hills, and a )arty of us walked out to see the first
house built in Oregon-the old residence of Astor. The place is now




THE WAY TO OREGO N.


403


of little importance except for shipping salmon. The call to a late
breakfast showed the fifty cabin passengers all on hand, each one speculating humorously as to how many would sit down to the next meal;
for we could already see the white foam on the bar, and knew that a
"high sea was running outside."  The Columbia bar was long the
terror of navigators, but it appears to have been such only through
ignorance; and, since proper soundings have been made, no more accidents have occurred in the last twenty years than at the mouths of
other large rivers. We passed it in an hour, without difficulty, and
soon were upon the "heaving ocean," of which we read. It was a
rough introduction. The heaviest sea encountered on the voyage was
at the start. One minute the bow appeared to be rearing up to square
off at the midday sun, and the next to get down and root for something
at the bottom of the ocean. Bets were made as to who would be the
" first to fall," and a large party of us went to the hurricane deck to
stand it out. With songs, shouts, and laughter We danced about on
unsteady footing, attempting an "Ethiopian walk-around" on the
heaving deck, determined to fight off the sickness to the last moment.
Then we practiced balancing against the waves, watching the water in
the hollows of the deck, and seizing on the moment when it started
one way to throw ourselves to the opposite. While enjoying this pastime, a lad of some fifteen years suddenly sank to the deck, then rose
and emptied his stomach at one vast heave. There was a yell of
laughter as he started below, but in a minute two more followed suit.
Then they fell away rapidly, and in an hour only five of us remained.
As I gazed on the bow, admiring the majestic sweep of its rise and
fall, it suddenly appeared to stop, then stood dead still, and the whole
body of the ocean appeared to rise and fall instead, and in a moment
my hqad seemed to rise and fall with it, leaving the bow between us
quite fixed. I had been warned not to look at the bow, but I forgot
it. I tried in vain to restore the natural order, but the illusion had
become to me a reality: the bow was still, and my head and the ocean
alone moved. At every rise my neck seemed to stretch out longer,
my head get farther from my body, and my stomach to rise and fall
with the ocean. Lunch was called, and I went below. One mouthful of soup I swallowed, but felt it coming'back. I clapped my hand
upon my mouth and rushed to my berth, badly defeated. Next door
to me was a family of four, making their first trip away from Oregon.
As I passed, the little girl and boy were lying in the lower berth, with
their heads over a basin, moaning with sickness; the young mother
lay above, pale as the sheet, and unable even to resist the motion of




404


WESTERN WILDS.


the vessel, which tossed her from side to side; and the husband sat by
trying to cheer them, while the dark bile swelled up in his cheeks,
and his eye showed the composure of despair. I could not repress a
sickly smile, for he had been the most hilarious of our party on deck.
From all sides came a mixed sound of curses, groans, and regurgita

CAPE MENDOCINO.
tions. My sickness lasted three hours; then came a delightful calm,
succeeded by a long, sweet sleep.
I learned a new fact, to me: there are really two kinds of seasickness; one begins in the head, and the other in the stomach, and
a man may have either or both. The latter, I am convinced, is simply
a reversal of the peristaltic motion of the stomach and bowels. In
the long swells, as the boat rises, one feels perfectly delightful; the
"insides" settle down, down, down, and are at rest. But as the boat




THE WAY TO OREGON.


405


sinks all the internal viscera rise-as one passenger expressed it,
" You fall away from your grub "-they press even against the throat,
producing a fearful and indescribable nausea. And one may have this
kind of sea-sickness without being a particle giddy. But the other
kind begins in the head: it is the result of the eye having nothing
fixed or solid to rest upon. Every thing one looks at is moving-the
boat, the lamps, the waves are so many sources of irritation to the
brain and optic nerve. Some persons get sick in a swing, or car; but
they find one relief: there is the sure and firm set earth to come back
to. But on a vessel every thing is in motion. This is the kind of
sickness I had; and, hence, when I lay down and shut my eyes, it
gradually passed away. But for those whose sickness begins at the
stomach there is no such remedy. They must suffer it through.
Next morning the sea was calm, the boat running " on an even
keel," and the rest of our voyage to San Francisco was delightful.
The third day the table was full again; every body protested they
"had not been very sick;" good appetite was the rule, and jollity
reigned. So I stick to my original advice: Take a day's sea-sickness
on the way to Oregon rather than go by stage. The second night,we
saw from afar the glowing summit of Point Arena Light-house-a
sublime sight from a distance on the ocean; and viewed the glories of
Cape Mendecino by the yellow4 light of the setting sun. Next night
we passed the Golden Gate, and anchored at the San Francisco wharf;
and, at daylight, I was delighted to find myself once more on terra
firma.




CHAPTER XXVI.


LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.
"G. T. T."  Forty years ago these mysterious letters might often
be seen chalked or charcoaled on the door of an absconding debtor
in the Middle, Southern and Western States. On the tax returns one
occasionally saw them, opposite the name of some ne'er-do-well who
had defrauded the State and other creditors by departing between two
days. "Gone to Texas" was the universal verdict in such cases; and
in due time the rural wags cut it down to the initial letters. The
State had a hard name. As all who left their country for their country's good were supposed to have gone to Texas, its population was
thought to be composed mainly of refugees from debt and justice; and
its society, such as is broadly hinted at in General Sam Houston's
reported farewell to his young wife: "Madame, you may go to hell,
and I'll go to Texas."
The glories of San Jacinto, Goliad and the Alamo, the bravery of
Texan troops in the Mexican War, and the able representatives the
State sent to Washington, rapidly raised our opinion of the new commonwealth; but its development continued slow till after the war.
Then a fresh spirit of emigration was excited in the Old South, which
soon spread to the North and West, and within seven years after the
peace, Texas was said to be receiving immigrants at the rate of four
thousand per week. On this south-westward wave I was again borne
along in the early part of 1873, for every body was curious about it,
and the State needed a pen-painter.
One may now ride without change of cars from St Louis to Galveston, 1,009 miles; and from all points east to St. Louis. It was proposed to push the western branch of the TexasCentral to Camargo, on
the Rio grande, and eventually to the City of Mexico; and grading
was in rapid progress when the panic of 1873 suddenly stopped it.
Only a few years, however, must elapse till one can ride by rail from
New York to the Mexican capital. By the Missouri, Kansas & Texas
Road, I passed leisurely through the first two States, and late in a cool
April day entered the Indian Territory. Daylight next morning
found us in the center of the Choctaw Nation, and still sixty miles
(406)




LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.


407


north of Red River. In the valleys the soil appeared very rich, on
the upland rather thin. About half the country is covered by timber,
and very fewcultivated farms are seen. Occasionally appears a cattle
corral, and near it a stylish log-house or rude cabin, from which
" White Choctaws" peer out at the train, with an air of lazy admiration.
In the heaviest timber, wild turkeys often fly near us, and smaller
game are quite abundant,*vwhilc on the high prairies large herds of
horses and cattle show the wealth and employment of the Choctaws.
Crossing the yellow Red River, which is rather narrow at this
point, we enter the sovereign State of Texas, and four miles further
disembark at the "city" of Denison. A regular " norther" is blowing, and for the first day of my stay an overcoat is not too heavy.
This is a cosmopolitan town. About half its citizens are from the
North, half from the South; a third or more are foreigners, tile rest
from every State in the Union. It is curious to observe how cften a
Northern and a Southern man are in partnership, and tlhat the clerks
in large establishments are similarly divided. The wants of commerce demand amnesty. The Alamo Hotel, where I stop, deserves a
week's study. It unites the characteristics of the Yankee hotel,, the
foreign hostelrie and the Southern "public house;" among its guests
are the swarthy Southron, the darker Mexican, the blonde Englishman, the pale Bostonian, and the omnipresent Jew, whose features are
the same from Puget's Sound to Key West. The neighboring region
is very fertile, the climate healthful, and if the State develops half as
fast as it promises, Denison must make a considerable city.
The " norther" blew all day. At night it suddenly ceased; the air
grew warm, and the streets of Denison were thronged by hundreds of
loungers. Let us walk, listen to the music from half a dozen concertsaloons, and take notes of the denizens. There is the regular railroad
follower, with glazed cap or slouched hat, dark red complexion, red
shirt and brawny arm; the "sporting gent" of faultless exterior,
whose wide-awake air in the evening, and eye with dark under-stain,
indicate wakeful nights and sleep by day; and& the Yankee merchant
and his Southern clerks, the usual combination here. And there are
the rural Texans lounging in groups of four or five, most of them
dark, gaunt, and grizzly; a few Mexicans, who have come with cattle
herds all the way from  San Antonio, and numbers of white "bullwhackers," sunburnt, healthy, and jolly, carrying with them constantly their murderous whips, which look as if one heavy stroke with
them would flay a cow's back. All are good-humored and sociable.
Their language is the horror of grammarians, and such phrases as




408


WESTERN WILDS.


" dun gone,"  clean clar out," " git shet of it," are elevated to the
dignity of good ordinary speech. About ten per cent. of the crowd
are negroes, the waiters and barbers usually light-colored, sleek and
polite, but the great mass black, ragged, and offensive.
"How's the haalth on Nohth Fohk?" asks one native of another.
"Pooty fayh," is the reply; "but the spiral maginnis tuck a good
many on Main Trinity this winter."  This is Texan for spinal meningitis. Long afterwards I asked a negro in South Carolina how his
people stood the winter, and received for reply: " Pooty fayh, but de
menin-jeesus tuck lots of 'em."  Similarly the motto, Sic Semper Tyrannis, best known in the South as the noted exclamation of Wilkes
Booth, is freely translated in Texas, "Six serpents and a tarantula."
The farmers adjacent to Denison are of the old Southern type, none
very wealthy, but all social, communicative, and glad to see the
country improved, no matter by whom. There is no end to the land
for sale, at from four to ten dollars per acre. At the hotels one hears
of "canned milk" and "sure enough milk," the latter very scarce.
All the butter used here comes from New York. There is not a
county in this section that sells five hundred pounds of it per year.
" Cheaper to sell cattle and buy it," they say; and I suppose they
know. There are no dairies, and very few potatoes are grown.
Those on the table at the "Alamo" are from Iowa, of picked sizes, and
worth from four to eight cents apiece. Per contra, good lemons can
be bought at "two bits a dozen;" fish very cheap, and first rate
Texas beef at the same price as potatoes-six or seven cents per
pound.   The soil hereabouts is slightly sandy; on the slopes it
changes to a rich black loam, and yields large crops of corn wheat
and cotton.
Thence I journeyed leisurely southward, over a soil like that of the
Illinois prairies. Not more than one-fifth of this part of Texas is
fenced in. Corn was two or three inches high, and wheat rather more
advanced; but the air was still cool enough to make a little fire in
the evening desirable.' Farmers all tell the same story: "Monsus
late, cold spring; wust since I've been in Texas. Cawn got up three
inches high; then was cut down by a big frost; then we had two
weeks o' fine growin' weather, follered by rain an' another frost; now
the cawn's doin' well agin, an' we've had the rain, an' the air's a
leetle like light frost, but I hope not."
We cross many clear streams, lined with timber; between them are
strips of high prairie. In the center of the county we stop at Sherman,
a fine old Texan town, and metropolis of this section before Denison




LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.


409


was built. Thence our way is down Main Trinity, at an average of
five miles from the river. As all the timber lies along the streams, we
are much of the time in a forest. It is estimated that one-half of that
section of Texas east of the Trinity is still covered with the primeval
forest. All the improvements worth noting are on the prairie, but a
" free-nigger patch," with demoralized log-hut, occasionally appears ill
the low wooded bottoms, where that class mostly live. Inquiring of
a philosophical native why this was thus, he replied: "Wall, they
don't care for the breeze like we. Reckon they want to bleach out.
You Northern folks are mistaken about that. 'Tain't the heat that
burns dark; it's the wind, a-stoppin' the sweat. Folks that live indoors, or in the timber, an' sweat free, are whiter than up North.
Find as fair girls in Galveston as ever you saw."  Whether the
colored American will, by operation of this principle, eventually
become a white man, is another question.
In Collin County we enter the cotton belt proper. Here is a region
a hundred and fifty miles square, with this county on its northern
boundary, which could be made to yield more cotton than is now
grown in all the States east of the Mississippi. Not more than one
acre in ten of this area is now inclosed; and, of that inclosed, the
smallest part is devoted to cotton; yet the product is already important. In the year 1870 the entire State had only 2,964,836 acres
of land under cultivation, yet the cotton, crop amounted to 350,628
bales.  Thirty thousand square miles, suitable to the production of
cotton, still remain in a state of nature.
Peaceful as it looks along this route, a short ride would bring one
into a hostile country. Not fifty miles west is the heavily wooded
strip known as the Cross Timbers; and, just west of that, the Comanche may occasionally be found in all his savage glory. Tradition.
tells of a time when these fierce nomads were at peace with the whites;
and tells, too, I am sorry to say, that a long truce was broken by the
cruel outrage and murder of a Comanche girl by a young Texan.
The truth of this matter it would be hard to trace, but since that date
the Comanches have waged unending, inexpiable war. Issuing from
his hiding-place in the western highlands, the warrior descends with
remorseless fury upon the settler; and every man of the tribe has cost
State or Nation thousands of dollars.
Thence through Ellis and Navarro counties, the country is of the
same general description, as far as Corsicana, where I make a long
halt. Navarro and Corsicana-husband and wife-were wealthy and'
enterprising Mexicans who ruled this region, and owned most of it




410


WESTERN WILDS.


forty-five years ago.  They welcomed American immigrants gladly,
but did not relish the revolution and change of sovereignty, especially
as it deprived them of many of their rights and privileges. So they
sold what land they had left, and retired to Mexico.  The county
is named for the husband, the town for the wife. Here I find that


~" \  '?.. 1~ -.~.E


COMAVNCHIE WARRIOR.
summer is rapidly coming north to meet me; corn is a foot high, and
the midday heat is a little uncomfortable. Here corn, wheat and cotton are produced sideby side; but four-fifths of the country is still
unfenced, and land can be had in abundance at surprisingly low
rates.  The planters tell me three-fourths of a bale of cotton
to the acre has often been ptoduced; but they seldom estimate that




LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.


411


way, not counting the land as an important item. They say " so many
bales to the hand," and consider eight or ten bales for each worker a
S.
fair average.
The planters are rich in land and cattle, but their style of living is
strangely primitive.  Farm-houses are of an open, roomy sort, with
porches on three sides usually, built against heat rather than cold.
Milk and butter are accounted luxuries.  There is but one grade of
society among whites, all living very much alike; the negroes
alone constituting the " lower classes." The latter are lazier than the
whites, which is a dreadful thing to say of them. They might, in ten
years, own half the land in the country if they would work steadily.
Fleas are the curse of the country. In Corsicana the dust seems to
breed them, and house-keepers have a regular science of ways and
means to get rid of them. Other undesirables are the tarantula and
centipede, the former a badly slandered creature at the North; for it
is comparatively harmless, and death very rarely results from its bite.
The centipede's sting is more venomous; it never strikes unless hurt
or disturbed, but its venom causes the flesh to rot from the afflicted
part, leaving the muscles bare. But all unite in saying they never
knew it to cause death.  I am, therefore, inclined to pass as fabulous
the statement a "returned volunteer " once gave me of this creature:
"An insect, sir, that runs like lightning', and spits a juice that'll knock
your eye out at a rod off; hit's got a diamond eye, a back like a hairy
spider, and a belly like a tobacker worm, with a thousand an' fortyfour legs; each leg has four stingers, and every stinger carries second
death."
From Corsicana the train on the Texas Central Railroad carried me
nearly straight south, leaving the valley of the Trinity and bearing
across the high country to the Brazos. Not one acre in ten of this
region is under fence. All the rest is common pasture, though most
of it belongs to private owners, and is for sale at two to six dollars per
acre. The region is high and gently undulating, about one-fifth in
timber, the rest fertile prairie. My next stopping place was Houston,
which I thought, at first view, the most beautiful place in Texas.
There had been a twenty-fvur-hours' rain, and at 9 A. M. the sun
shone out clear; the orange groves, magnolias, and shade trees looked
their richest green, and Houston presented to the newly arrived
Northerner a most enchanting appearance.   That city, the original
capital of Texas, is at the head of Buffalo Bayou, a long projection of
Galveston Bay, but for some days there had been quite a current owing
to late and heavy rains. Three steamers were anchored in the narrow




412


WESTERN WILDS.


channel, and half a dozen or more alligators, about six feet long, were
sunning themselves on the drift-wood. The view there was not lovely,
but back in the city, and on the level tract in every direction around,
it was all the tourist could desire. Attending Baptist Sabbath-school
and Presbyterian Church, I found about three dozen persons at each;
whence I argued that the Houstonians are not piously inclined, or that
a bright Sunday had greater charms outdoors than an orthodox sermon
within.
Monday morning I was early awakened by a few shots, and rose to
find some of the patriotic citizens celebrating tie thirty-seventh anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto. I was evidently in an extreme
Southern latitude at last. Pictures of Lee and Stonewall Jackson
adorned the places of resort; the boys whistled " Bonnie Blue Flag"
and "Dixie;" and two of my neighbors at the breakfast table had an
animated conversation about " the doings of them d-d thieves up at
Austin," a polite reference to the present legislature. By midday the
weather was as hot as it would have been in Ohio; then the weatherwise said: "We'll have a norther," which is recognized as nature's
regular plan in Texas for settling the weather. The day invited to
repose; and Houston is a a reposeful" place. All the dwellings have
a delightfully home-like look, with wide porches around them, and are
almost hidden in dark-green groves.  If one were rich, and correspondingly lazy, I can't think of a better place for him. But to be
poor, in the far South-ah, that is bad!  If that's your condition,
'better stop in upper or central Texas.
Thence to Galveston the "mixed train" consumed four hours in
going fifty miles. At every station little darkies invaded the train
to sell gorgeous tropical flowers, especially the immense magnolia
buds, which expand to the complete flower in a few hours after being
gathered. The road slopes to the south-east so gently that the eye
can not perceive the decline, and on the whole route one does not see
fifty houses. I am curious to see the thickly-settled part of Texas, for
I have never found it yet. Herds of Texas cattle are seen in all directions, and grazing appears to be the only use made of the fertile plain
extending thirty miles inland from the coast. Nearing the shore we
find a few houses, surrounded by little farms devoted to fruit, vegetables, and poultry for the Galveston market, but nothing to indicate
the vicinity of a great city.  Passing these we enter open country
again, and flat, marshy land of little value extends some five miles
from the Gulf.
Passing the Confederate earthworks, erected to defend the channel




LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.,


413


against Yankee gun-boats, we enter on the two-mile trestle-work,
which conducts us to the beautiful island and delightful city of Galveston. An island of hard white sand, thirty miles long and from
one to four broad, rises evenly on every side from the salt surf; nowhere more than ten or twenty feet above high tide, the location has
just slope enough for convenient drainage. The city is on the northcast end of the island.  The streets run with the cardinal points, and
are lined on both sides with heavy shade-trees.  Except in the center
of town and the business front, on the north side and known as the
Strand, the houses are surrounded by oranges, oleanders and other
Southern trees and flowers, the neat white dwellings rising from this
dark green and leafy mass. All day the gulf breeze sweeps inland
through the broad streets, and after an hour or two of sultry calm the
land breeze blows outward all night. In the morning there is another warm calm of an hour or two, then the ocean breeze comes
again. One would think it ought to be the healthiest place in America, But there are drawbacks. About once in five years the yellow
fever visits the place. The last time the city was almost entirely
abandoned.  Already the papers and physicians are arguing pro and
con the momentous question, " Will it come this year?"  Late arrivals report it as very bad at Rio Janeiro, and slowly advancing along
the " Spanish main."
It was a gala day in Galveston, and in the evening I found every
resort thronged; while on the streets bands of music discoursed
lively airs, and a thousand negroes thronged the streets, "happy as
clams at high tide."  San Jacinto was being celebrated, and every
body and every thing Texan was mightily glorified. Nothing disloyal
or unfriendly to the nation was heard, but there was a general agreement that Texas produced the bravest men in the world.  I am too
good-natured to differ with them.  I have run down ten degrees of
latitude in less than a month, from late winter to early summer, and
begin to feel the effects of such a change.  But in the open halls and
on the wide porches of the Exchange, with the gulf breeze by day
and the outward breeze by night, I soon get my constitution accustomed to a deal of rest, and like the lotus-eaters of Homer's fabled
isle, having tasted the delights of an ocean beach in the tropics, nothing but compulsion takes me away.
No man can ride on the beach there without falling in love with
Galveston. Between the highest and lowest tide-mark is a fimn, white
expanse, some two hundred yards wide, extending around the head of
the island and down the southern side for thirty miles. The heaviest




414


WESTERN WILDS.


carriage-wheel barely marks it, the foot of a horse scarcely dents it;
sloping gently to the water's edge, washed occasionally by the highest
tide, and always swept by a gentle wind, it is certainly the most beautiful drive on our coast. From 4 P. M. till dark there is the place
to see the beauty, wealth and fashion of Galveston. Instead of a
winter resort, as I had supposed, this is becoming rather a midsummer resort. Old settlers from Virginia and Kentucky tell me they
visit those States in the spring or autumn, but make it a point to
spend midsummer here, for coolness.
From Galveston to Austin the railroad runs through the very heart
of Texas, connecting its most important cities; but less than one-fifth
of the country is inclosed, and every county contains immense tracts
of fertile, uncultivated land.  At Houston more railroads center than
at any other point in the State-the Galveston Road, the Brazoria
Road southward into the county of that name, the San Antonio Road
westward to Colorado County, the Houston & Northern Road into
Anderson County, and the Texas Central to Red River, with a branch
from Hempstead to Austin. Along this last line the country seems
very new. " Too much land in Texas" is the popular explanation.
In other Western States one finds settlements thick along the eastern
boundary, and a rapid falling off near the western border; in Texas
the "border" is all over the State. Settlements and farms are nowhere coterminous; and until one goes some distance up the slope,
north-westward, he finds about as many people in one section as another. The pursuits of the original Texans, a minimum of farming to
a maximum of hunting and herding, required large open areas between
the farms.  Now cattle-raising, as an exclusive business, is confined
to the far western portion of the State, and all the center and eastern
section are calling for immigration.
Soon after crossing the Brazos, from Austin County into Washington, I found an old Arizona acquaintance, the prickly cactus, scattered
thickly over the prairie-a pretty sure indication that we were getting into a dryer country. A little further, and we were among the
mezquit thickets, which look to the stranger very like old peach orchards.  They grow in patches on the highest and dryest lands, and
are full of thorns as long and sharp as needles.
Soon after we enter Travis County, and descend a beautiful and fertile slope to the city of Austin, which appears from afar like a scattered collection of neat white cottages, embowered in groves and
grass-plats.  The cityward bluff of the Colorado rises almost perpendicular for thirty feet or more from the water's edge, thence a beauti



A   LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.


415


ful plain extends for some two hundred rods northward, and rises by
a gentle grade to several picturesque knolls.  On the crest of the central one, which slopes evenly toward all the cardinal points, stands
the capitol; north of it are other public buildings, all around and for
two miles further north are the finest private residences, while the
city proper, of trade and crowded streets, extends from the capitol
(lowln to the river.  Except the main street due south from the capitol, and a few of the nearest cross-streets, the city appears like anl extension of retired country seats. At three or four places only is the
steep bluff graded down to give a passage to the river; but north of
town is a more gentle slope, and a broad sand-bar. On the opposite
side is a range of heavily-timbered hills, and all around, far as the
eye can see, and twenty miles further, extends a gently rolling country, alternating strips of fertile prairie with pretty little groves.  The
commissioners who selected this site for the capitol deserved well of
their country; but they looked a long way ahead, for it was then
(1839) " far up the country," on the Indian border, and even now this
may be considered the western limit of connected settlement.  But
they had faith in the future, and selected the most available spot near
the geographical center.  In 1841 several men were killed by Indians within the corporate limits of the city, and Castro, a Lepan
chief, was regularly hired by the infant government to scout north
and west and-keep off the Comanches.   The growth of the city has
been slow and regular.
Here we enter the land of border romance. Hence to the Rio
Grande south-west, and to the Rocky Ridge west and north-west, every grove, canfion and valley has been the scene of some romantic and
daring incident; but should I attempt to repeat all that are told here,
the world itself, to borrow a simile from Scripture, would not contain
the books that should be written. Hunters and herders alternately
fought and fraternized with both Mexicans and Indians, and many a
brave Texan has risked and suffered sudden death by venturing back
to the hostile region after a favorite Indian girl or seiorita.  Noted(
among the wild riders of those days was one Bob Rock, an outcast
from Mississippi, who, like thousands of others, had sought texas as a
land where legal requisitions were not valid. His skill with the rifle
passed into a proverb. "If Bob Rock draws a bead on him, he's
gone," was the general verdict. But the desperado was conquered at
last by a little mestiza, who, though of mixed blood, affected most the
company of her wild kinsmen; and she, by her native coquetry, succeeded in drawing the hunter into the rocky region near the head of




416


WESTERN WILDS.,$


the Colorado.  Attacked most treacherously in the tent, the stout
frontiersman succeeded in breaking the cordon and getting into the
open plain with his trusty horse and rifle.  But he had another range
of hills to cross, and every pass was guarded, while the nearest pursuer was now but two hundred yards behind him.    "I felt orful
streaked," said Bob in his account, "but I knowed 'old blaze' had
'@
Injun. He dodged back as I turned agin, to lay for me, l"ut I seed it


*




LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS.


417


was my first, last andl only, and I sot old Sally at a gallop for that
pint, holdin' old blaze' to be ready for him. Sure enough, just a
minute too soon to take me on-a-wars, Mister Injun riz with his piece
ready cocked. But I was too quick for him, and spiled his aim. His
bullet cut pretty close, but mine took him center, and 'fore another
could get up to the pass I was through an' out, an' I tell you I kept
clar of that squaw arter that." Fortunately for the community, Bob's
blood cooled as he grew older, and he settled into a very respectable
citizen.
My first call in Austin was upon Governor E. J. Davis, last Republican executive of the State, then holding his own against fearful odds.
Also his Adjutant General, none other than an old Evansville friend,
Captain Frank Britton, formerly of the Twenty-fifth Indiana Volunteers.  Between them  and other State officials a hot conflict was
raging, and the Legislature was devoting all its energies to undoing
the work of its predecessors, so as to cut down the Governor's power
as much as possible. This body had lately come into power as the result of the revolution of 1872, when the election was carried by the
Democrats by an overwhelming majority. It was the first State Legislature I ever saw, and later experience has not changed my first impression, that it was a very able one.  In the House the Democrats
had three-fourths and in the Senate only lacked three of having twothirds, all very industrious in repealing the laws of preceding Legislatures. The regular proceeding was to pass a. law, send it to the
Governor, get it back with a veto message, and then spend a week
bringing over enough Republican Senators to pass it over his veto.
I was taking notes from Hon. C. B. Sabin, representative from
Brazoria and Matagorda counties, when Hon. "Shack" Roberts, of
Harrison County, an immense black man, rose to speak. His address
was replete with humor and sarcasm, causing great laughter and applause. He is a Methodist preacher, very black, and uses the broadest " plantation-darkey " English.  The six colored members of the
House and two in the Senate added a pleasing variety. The members
generally would compare quite favorably with those of Indiana or
Ohio., (After that comparison, further description would be " risky.")
I was introduced to the Honorable "Shack," and after giving his
testimony to the improved condition of affairs generally, he added:
"The Methodists have done wonders for our people in edication, and
we're a doin' more. Qur church at home-the A. M. E.-has just
'stablished the Wiley University at Marshall, Texas-named after
Bishop Wiley. We bought two hundred acres in a mile an' a half of
27




418


WESTERN WTILDS.


the court-house, afore the town started up so with the railroad, an'
now we're sellin' it off fast in buildin' lots at from fifty to two hundred dollars a lot, savin' just twenty acres in the middle for the university.  We'll soon have it runnin', and it will be free to both sexes,
'thout regard to color or previous condition."
Texas is the most tolerant and liberal of all the reconstructed States.
While under Republican rule, very stringent laws had been adopted to
repress disorder; for the condition of the State just after the war was
deplorable.  Before the war, it had not been as bad as reported,
though quite bad enough. For instance, in 1860, with a population
of 650,000, Texas had a total of 121 homicides; while New York,
with 3,000,000 people, had but 37. There was a steady and rapid increase of crime until 1869, the first year of the new regime, for which
there are full returns, when the State had no less than 1200 homicides!
In this state of facts, the leading Republicans brought forward
what are sometimes called the "Five Administration Measures:" The
militia law, the State police law, the concealed weapon law, and the
sch6ol and immigration laws.  The first authorized the Governor to
suspend the habeas corpus at his discretion, to order the militia from
any part of the State to another part, and to arm any portion of the
population in any disturbed neighborhood. The police law organized
a small body of mounted men, to be continually under pay of the
State, and ready to go to any section.  They never numbered more
than three hundred.
Many brave Confederate soldiers joined this militia and aided in
putting down disorder.  The moral effect was tremendous.  Eight
hundred robbers gnd desperadoes fled the State in a body. There was
a hanging in every county, till in the State, except in the extreme
west, life and property were as secure as in New England. Then, unfortunately, these extraordinary powers were perverted.  It was the
old story over again: a condition of strife and social disorder leads to
the placing of immense power in one man's hands; but when the disorder is passed, the ruler has grown too fond of his power to part with
it without a struggle, and employs it to crush opposition. The people
seek refuge from anarchy in a sort of legal despotism, and are driven
by despotism into anarchy.  In 1872 the State police were used to
break up Democratic and Liberal-Republican meetings. But in another year the revolution was complete, Governor Davis yielded, in
an awkward hurry, to a Democratic Governor, and now Texas is the
most solid outpost of the "Solid South."




CHAPTER XXVII.


TEXAS —CONTINUED.
ROBERT CAVALIER, Sieur de la Salle, led the first European immigrants to Texas, landing near the entrance to Matagorda Bay, on
the 18th of February, 1685. William Penn had founded Philadelphia
three years before; the French were stretching their settlements from
Canada down the western rivers, and the Spaniards were advancing
slowly north ward into New Mexico. A hundred and fifty years before,
some survivors of the Pamphilo de Narvaez expedition had traversed
Texas as captives among the Indians, but no title to the country could
result therefrom.
La Salle, as American history calls him, had discovered the mouth
of the Mississippi, April 7th, 1682, and soon after took possession of
all that region by proclamation and proces verbal, in the name of
Louis XIV.   He was on his return with four ships to make a settlement, when an error in his calculations brought him on the Texan
coast. All his people were in ecstasies over the beauty and richness
of the country, and a settlement was agreed upon at once. Soon after
they moved over on a stream they called Les Vaches, which the
Spaniards afterwards translated into La Vaca, both meaning " the cow-s."
Hard work and imprudence in such a climate produced sickness; carelessness led to murders by the Indians; Beaujeu, commander of the
fleet, sailed away with two of the vessels; one of the other two was
soon after wrecked, and the little colony got badly discouraged. By
the law of nations this country, thinly occupied by wild Indians, now
belonged to France; but in due time Spain took a different view of it,
relying on previous Spanish explorations, never proved however, to
the satisfaction of diplomats. Near the close of the sixteenth century
Philip II., the gloomy tyrant of Spain, issued a royal order forbidding all foreigners to enter this territory under penalty of extermination. Thus began a "border question," which, passing down suc~cessively from Spaniard to Mexican, and from French to English and
American, lasted two centuries and a half, till settled by the treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the 2d of February, 1848. In this contro(419)




420


WESTERN WILDS.


versy, reader, find the key to the whole history of Texas as connected
with other governments.
Its settlement cost the lives of many thousand good men. The
Comanches were then, as now, a race of nomadic thieves; the Lipans and
Carankawaes dominated the country between the Rio Grande and Colorado. Other tribes were the Caddoes, Cenis and Nassonites. Texas
had neither boundaries nor a name. The origin of the latter nobody
knows, but it is supposed to be from an Indian word meaning "good
hunting-ground," and was long spelled indifferently Tehas, Tejas,
Tekas or Texas, which differ very little in Spanish pronunciation.
Even now the residents are known as Tejanos (pro. Teh-hah-noes) by
the Mexicans.                                                J
La Salle started northward with a considerable company, to open
communication with Canada; and was murdered by two of his men.
The survivors quarreled among themselves; the murderers were
in turn assassinated; others were drowned or captured, and of all
that colony only five lived to see France again. Those left on the
Lavaca were surprised by the Indians, part killed, and the rest carried
into captivity, whence in old age they were reclaimed by the missionaries. Thus ended the first settlement in Texas.
Soon after the Spaniards planted missions and military posts in the
south-west, but drought and hostile Indians drove them out, and for
twenty years the country had not one white inhabitant. In 1712
Louis XIV   granted to Anthony Crozat all Louisiana, as far west as
the Rio Grande, and sent out an embassy, which was captured by the
Spaniards. "The year of Missions" in Texas was 1715, when the
Spaniards began again to plant them in the country. Thereafter it
was permanently occupied by Spain, and its various sections known as
the New Philippines and New Estremadura. For some fifty years
now we have the Mission Period, as in all Spanish American countries.
Those in Texas were controlled by zealous Franciscan priests, who
spent a life-time in toil to convert the savage natives. At each mission was a presidio, or commandant's head-quarters, with officers
enough for two hundred and fifty men, though the latter rarely numbered so many. The first move was to capture by force or stratagem
a hundred or more Indians. On these kindness and persuasion were
exhausted, and they were taught all the ceremonies of an exceedingly
ceremonial religion. When sufficiently trusty they were sent out to
persuade others in; abundance of food was insured them, agriculture
was taught, all the feasts and fasts were scrupulously observed, and at
some missions the daily exercises in prayer and other services occupied




TEXAS-CONTINUED.


421


five hours! Those whom this system converted it in due time wore
out; those who resisted it were made wilder than ever. Then the
fathers began with the women and children, with far better success;
and in due time there grew up about each mission a considerable population of domesticated Indians, who cultivated the soil, were painfully pious and as docile as sheep. The fathers called themselves


UN INDIO BRAVO -TEXAS.
gente de razon, or people of reason, in contradistinction to the
heathen; but in due time arose a better nomenclature. The wild
Indians were known as Indios bravos, the converted as Indios reducidos.
And badly "reduced" they were. Little by little the reducidos were
merged, largely by intermarriage with discharged soldiers. Hence the
mestizoes, nearly the same as regular Mexicans of the present day.




422


WESTERN WILDS.


Meanwhile great things had happened in Europe, which changed
the political map of America. William of Orange, the Champion of
Protestantism-if he had not been that, we should have thought
him a sullen Dutchman-had fairly worn out Louis XIV, and made
peace with him. But soon after, the lunatic King of Spain died, and
all the other lunatics fell to cutting each other's throats about tile
'balance of power," that mysterious abstraction which has caused
more wholesale murder in modern Europe than all other causes combined. The English, Dutch and Germans would not allow the crown
of Spain to be bestowed on Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV,
as provided by Philip of Spain, in his so-called will. Hence another
bloody war, and a general rearrangement at the treaty of Ryswick.
But this left open certain questions between France and Spain; so they
went to war in 1718.
The Louisiana French attacked and drove out the Spaniards as far
west as Bexar. But the latter soon recovered the country. After a
deal of reconnoitering, some sharp fighting, and many brave actions
and romantic incidents in Texas, a sort of peace was patched up between France and Spain, and the latter determined to colonize Texas
regularly.  Soon after, the French handed over Louisiana to the
Mississippi Company, then controlled by the notorious John Law, the
original "greenbacker" and great " soft money " advocate. Other
schemes now occupied the two nations, and their respective colonists
had time to attend to legitimate business. In 1728, Spain sent to
Texas several families from the Canary Isles, then peopled by a race
known above all Spaniards for rigid adherence to the Catholic Church,
domestic purity, and respect for women. Another colony came, composed of the original Tlascalans, whom Cortez could not conquer;
they assisted greatly in capturing Indios bravos for conversion. But
the country was in bad shape. Many dissolute soldiers had been discharged there. It invited wanderers and adventurers; and had a bad
name as early as 1750. Apache and Comanche raids were frequent,
and pirates began to hover along the coast., So in 1745, Texas contained no more than 1,500 whites-less than in 1722. Mestizoes and
"converted Indians " were more numerous.
Thence to 1758 there was a dead calm. That year the Indians captured San Saba Mission, and killed every one there. Thenceforward
the missions declined. Meanwhile England and France got to fighting again; there was, therefore, a general rectification of boundaries in
America, and a new deal all around the board in Europe. France
was so weakened by this contest, that in 1762 she ceded Louisiana to




TEXAS-CONTINUED.


423


Spain, to keep England from getting it. Bear in mind that Louisiana
then meant all the country drained by the Mississippi, except where
the English had obtained prior rights on its eastern affluents. Next
year peace was made, by which England got Canada and all the
French country east of the Mississippi and above the present Louisiana. One clause in that treaty was afterwards of immense importance
to the United States, viz.: " The navigation of the Mississippi to be
free to the subjects of both England and France."
This state of affairs continued forty years, and was of immense advantage to Texas; the missions died out, and regular colonists began
to take their place. Meanwhile the American Revolution occurred,
and there was no end of fighting between England on one side and
France and Spain on the other. Spain refused the free navigation of
the Mississippi, and the people of the western States swore they would
take it by force. Then the French Revolution took place, and for
awhile France had to fight all the rest of Europe. By secret treaty in
1800, Louisiana was transferred back from Spain to France, though the
United States did not know it till two years after. All this time the
boundaries of Texas and Louisiana had remained unsettled; the
French had often claimed as far west as the Rio Grande, the Spaniards always as far east as the Sabine. This condition invited revolutionists and adventurous spirits, and there were numerous incursions,
battles, skirmishes, and massacres which have no connection with the
general history. Meanwhile the French Revolution progressed; Bonaparte got control of that country, and found himself engaged in a
life and death struggle with England. He could not hold Louisiana,
and needed money; the United States was on hand with the cash, the
sale was made, and the transfer completed by imposing ceremonies in
New Orleans, in December, 1803.
This brought up the old border question in a new shape. While the
diplomats of Spain and the United States used up two years in attempts at a treaty, the provinces were a dozen times on the point of
actual war. Governor Claiborne, of Louisiana, called out the militia,
and forbade the Spaniards to cross the Sabine. At length it was settled that the strip between the Sabine and Arroyo Hondo should be
neutral ground for the present. This was a beautiful arrangement.
Of course the neutral strip was soon infested by desperadoes, and
countless robberies and outrages were perpetrated. In one instance
two desperadoes were captured, and to make them  betray their companions were severely whipped. Then live coals were passed over
their raw and bleeding backs. But they were gritty rascals, and re



424


4WESTERN WILDS.


fused to the last. To this stage of Texan history belong the establishments on the coast by pirates and smugglers, such as that of La Fitte at
Barataria.
Early in 1812, Lieutenant A. W. Magee, left his post in the United
States territory, and with a mixed force of adventurers from the
States, volunteers from the neutral ground, and natives of Texas of
Spanish blood, marched westward to redeem that region from the rule
of Spain. There had been a sort of civil war in Mexico between the
popular party and the aristocrats; the Anglo-Texans had taken the
popular side, and Magee came in to assist them. It would have been
money in his pocket and in theirs had he stayed away. He was
steadily victorious till he reached La Bahia, west of the Guadaloupe.
There he was confronted by a large force under Salado, and agreed to
retire. This his men refused to accede to, and at once attacked the
Spaniards, and gained a bloody victory. Overcome with shame, Magee
died by his own hand. After various successes this army fell into an
ambuscade, and were nearly all killed or captured. The prisoners
were brutally murdered by the Spaniards.
Bonaparte's wars were now stirring up devilment and' wholesale
murder in every corner of the civilized world. He had invaded Spain,
deposed the feeble king, banished the royal family, then at war with
itself, and put his brother Joseph on the throne. Two Spanish parties
at once arose: for accepting Joseph and for opposing himn. Blood
flowed on all sides. The divisions extended to all Spanish America.
In Mexico the ruling classes favored Joseph Bonaparte; the common
people supported the juntas, or revolutionory bodies which resisted
him. On all sides the standard of revolt was raised. The Indians
burned to avenge the wrongs of three centuries; the common Mexicans were greedy for spoil; the Church labored for aggrandizement.
There were murders and riots in every section; towns were sacked and
prisoners massacred by thousands, and Mexico entered upon that career of bloody anarchy which has continued with only occasional intermissions to this day. When, this condition was at it8 worst, war
broke out betweeni England and the United States. La Fitte and other
pirates and smugglers received a general pardon for serving under
General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and after the peace returned and took possession of Galveston Island. There they set up
an independent government-the most ridiculous little sovereignty that
ever existed-which flourished greatly until broken up by the American authorities.
Mexico obtained her independence, and established the celebrated.


9




TEXAS-CONTINUED.


425


Constitution of 1824, about which there has been so much fighting
since. We have seen how the division in Spain excited revolution in
Mexico; in exactly the same way civil war in Mexico brought on revolt, and finally independence, in Texas. No sooner was the Constitution of 1824 adopted, than the ruling classes insisted on a strong
central government, the reduction of the States to departments, and a
president with greater powers. These were called Centralists; their
opponents Federalists-a name meaning the exact opposite of what it
does in the United States. Santa Anna, by intrigue, treachery, and
the support of the Church, obtained control as a Centralist; his great
rival Bustamente stirred up numerous revolutions among the Federalists. At first Texas appeared equally divided, but in no long time the
Federalists got control, as it was obviously for her interests that there
should be separate State governments. Embassies and petitions were
sent to Mexico City; the petitions were disregarded, the envoys often
imprisoned. Thus, little by little the war spirit was excited in Texas.
Meanwhile Moses Austin had obtained his large grant of land in
Texas from the Mexican government, and dying, left its settlement to
his son Stephen. Having completed this work, Stephen Austin took
an active part in political affairs, and went to Mexico as an envoy
from Texas. There he was thrown into prison, where he remained
two years and a half. All this time the Mexicans went on pulling
down one and setting up another; and, as the result of half a dozen
revolutions, Bustamente and the Federalists came into power. But
their rule was as bad for Texas as that of the Centralists. They concluded that the Territory contained too many Americans, and forbade
the immigration of any more! They passed about all the vexatious
laws against free trade they could think of. Whenever it was certified
to them that the Anglo-Texans were making money on any article,
they straightway proceeded to restrict its sale or production. Among
other bright laws, was one that no planter in Texas should sow more
than one bushel of tobacco seed!  Tobacco growers will see the
point. The largest planter in Ohio does not use a gill.
To further aggravate the Texans, their province was attached to
Coahuila.  The Mexicans of that State furnished two-thirds of the
legislature; and the inhabited part of Texas was nearly a thousand
miles from the State capital. The Texans agitated and interceded for
a separate government; the Mexican authorities responded by a more
oppressive tariff law, and by introducing garrisons into the country toi
overawe the " rebels."  Meanwhile there was another revolution in
Mexico. Bustamente retired, Santa Anna took the reins, and estab~


J




426


WESTERN WILDS.


lished the firmest government Mexico ever enjoyed. As soon as he
had tranquillized the other States, hanged and shot a few dozen of
his opponents, and banished the rest, he collected a large army and
marched on Texas, to settle things, as he said, effectually. He did it;
but not exactly as he had intended.
The white population of Texas did not exceed 50,000. They had
_ ------    ^   --   _been divided, but the approach
XEB          P. A  ]AKL     of the army united them; and
/  *     i   ^they resolved on independence.
A c K. A D oF''"Their army easily drove out the
K A N s A s          l     feeble garrisons in South-western
k_                 I       Texas, but in no long time was
N '         overwhelmed by disaster. Early
aTER            OWin 1836, Santa Anna entered the
w"                   Territory with an army of 8,000
men, sendin word to the Texans that he intended to "sweep
away every thing save the recNollection that they once existed."
s                    The brave William Barret Travis
d                  commanded the Alamo Fort with
COf thahdF OFarEXIr     only a hundred and thirty men.
he,?                  /He sent off, with all speed, for
mkndiasutnbig           reinforcements; announced that
TEXAS AND COAHUILA IN 1830.  he would hold the place till the
rest of the country could be put in posture for defense, and concluded with the words: " God and Texas!     Liberty or Death!"
Of that hundred and thirty men, only Moses Rose escaped; and
he, ashamed of having abandoned his companions, and slipped out
through the Mexicans at the last hour, never gave account of the
siege till on his death-bed. For two weeks the Mexicans kept it up,
making daily assaults, and being picked off by the Texan rifles. The
last evening the enemy withdrew to prepare for a final assault. Travis
ranged his few surviving followers, and thus addressed them:
"Men, we must die! Our speedy massacre is a fixed fact. Let us
choose that mode which can best serve our country. If we surrender,
we shall be shot; if we try to cut our way out, we shall be butchered
before we can kill twenty of the enemy. We could but lose our lives
without benefiting our friends-our fathers and mothers, our brothers
and sisters, our wives and little ones. Let us, then, vow to die together. Let us kill as many as possible. Kil them ais they scale the




TEXAS-CONTINUED.


427


wall! Kill them as they leap in! Kill them   as they raise their
weapons; and continue to kill them as long as one of us shall remain
alive. And, be assured, our memory will be gratefully cherished till
all history shall be erased and noble deeds be forgotten among men.
God and Texas! Liberty or Death!"
He then traced a line with his sword, requesting all who would die
with him to step over it. Every one complied but Rose. He, disguised as a Mexican, and speaking the language fluently, crawled out
down a ravine and escaped. Long before daylight the Mexicans advanced, with discharges of musketry and cannon. The cavalry formed
a ring around the infantry, for the double purpose of urging them on
and preventing the escape of any of the garrison. Pressed on by those
behind, the foremost assailants tumbled inside the walls by hundreds. Every Texan died fighting. Travis was shot, and a Mexican
officer rushed forward to dispatch him; he rallied all his strength,
pierced his assailant with his sword, and both expired together. Major
Evans was shot in the act of attempting to fire the magazine. Bowie,
then disabled, was butchered in his bed. When only seven were
left they asked for quarter.  It was refused; and, drawing their
bowie-knives, they rushed to a final assault, and died on the bayonets of their foes.  Their remains were savagely mutilated and refused burial.
Among the slain was one, with bowie-knife clinched in his stiffened
hand, and surrounded by a heap of the fallen enemy, whose countenance bore even in death the impress of that nobleness which had animated it in life, conjoined with the healthful freshness of the hunter's
aspect. It. was Colonel David Crockett; of Tennessee-a man whose
real life was a romance more thrilling than novelist ever portrayed.
He was a product of nature in her most bounteous clime, of active life
and free institutions.  In childhood the axe and the rifle were his
playthings; in early manhood he fought for his country against the
British, and in peace his personal qualities earned promotion from his
neighbors. Hospitality kept cheerful watch at his door; welcome sat
smiling at his table, and social humor gleamed in his bright eye. His
career in Congress was not a success, but gave him a keener relish for
a free, western life; and he left his native State for Texas, to assist in
making her free. Brave Crockett, thou didst deserve a better fate; but
in thy death was born a zeal for Texan freedom which did more than
a thousand lives.  In thy memory the State has a legacy that will
glorify her early annals, and animate her sons till the last hour of
her existence.


~




428.


WESTERN WILDS.


The best accounts place the Mexican loss at twelve hundred, The
dead heroes had accomplished their object; Santa Anna was weakened and delayed, and the young State was saved. Shortly after
Colonel Fannin, with four hundred men, began his retreat from
Goliad to Victoria; but was surrounded, and surrendered his command to General Urrea, as prisoners of war. They were barbarously
massacred by order of Santa Anna, only a few medical men being
spared, because the
Mexican army needed them.   On all
sides the   AngloTexan families now
fled before the invaders; the  latter
fo llowed close, burnf. idpnec.forv.  Erl. nx  ing every thing they
could not carry
-Lxaway. Finally General Sam   Houston,: Xt h e Commander-inGE   Chief, with  o n ly
eight hundred men,
made a stan  d   atr
San Jacinto, on
Buffalo Bayou,
where he was at/      tacked by the whole
army of Santa Anna.
Thte Texans a dGENERAL SAM HOUSTON.          vanced furiously to
the charge, a hand-to-hand combat followed, and in one hour the
Mexicans fled in confusion, leaving six hundred and thirty dead
upon the field, and eight hundred prisoners in the hands of the
Texans. This battle, fought April 21st, 1836, settled the question
of independence forever. Early next morning a party of Texans
found, hidden in a marsh near the bayou, a slender and light complexioned man, wearing a valuable ring on his finger, but awkwardly
clad in the dress of a common Mexican soldier. He begged for his
life; and when his captors told him le was safe, seized the dirty hand
of the nearest and covered it with kisses! It was Santa Anna!
Other Mexican officers, similarly disguised, were detected in like




TEXAS-CONTINUED.


429


manner by their complexion; for the officers are, as a rule, of purer
Spanish blood than the privates.
When brought to General Houston, stiff with cold and barely able
to speak, the prisoner announced his name and rank, and asked for
opium. Having swallowed this, his spirits soon revived, and addressing Houston with lofty dignity, he said: "Sir, you are born to no
ordinary destiny; you have conquered the Napoleon of the West!"
Modesty never was Santa Anna's strong suit.
While a captive he acknowledged the independence of Texas, but
repudiated it when free; and a feeble sort of border war went on for
eight years, the Texans making several expeditions against Santa Fe,
all of which proved unsuccessfll. In these and the Mier expedition
many barbarities were committed-some on both sides. Then came
the annexation to the United States, the. Mexican war, the period of
development, and the war of the Rebellion, all of which are within
the memory of men yet young. Texas suffered less from the late war
than any other Southern State. Her soil was barely touched upon the
border by invading Federals. She was smart enough to let Confederate money alone, and stick to gold and silver, which constitute her
currency to-day. Soon after the war the spirit of immigration revived,
and since 1872. Texas has been receiving settlers at the average rate
of two or three thousand per week. And still there is room. Of
her 270,000 square miles, or thereabout, one-third or more is as fertile as any part of the West; one-third is less fertile, but of great
value for grazing; the remainder, lying far up the slope, is dotted
with rocky hills and sandy wastes. The Staked Plain, so called
from the stakes with which the Mexicans marked a road across it, is
mostly an irreclaimable desert. As in all the border States, fertility
decreases as one goes towards the heads of the streams, up the slope
and away from the larger bodies of water and timber. Her 100,000
square miles of fertile land now contain at least 1,200,000 inhabitants; and there is land abundant for twice as many rnore. She can
accommodate the surplus population of the Southern and MiddleWestern States for fifty years.
Dallas is the center of a region two hundred miles square, which is
eminently fitted for occupation by Northern men. In the upper sections corn, wheat and cotton grow side by side; farther down corn
and cotton are the staples. It is high, dry and healthful; but Northerners should not settle on the "bottom lands" along the streams.
Even Texans incline to surrender them to the freedmen. Southern
Texas would not suit the majority of Northern born settlers. Not




430


WESTERN WILDS.


that it is so hot, but the heat continues longer, and in winter the
extremes are painful. Warm, moist weather is generally followed
very suddenly by a "blue norther" that pinches one fearfully. The
streams are more sluggish, too, and malaria is to be apprehended.
Some constitutions stand it very well, however. The grazing region
proper is in the south-west and west.
The central portion of Western Texas is regarded as the best sheep
country in the State. It is a broken, high, rolling country, supplied
with an abundance of rocks and clear rippling streams, and excellent
grass. The sheep fatten easily, grow magnificent fleeces; and owing
to the mild climate, the herders are very successful in raising the
lambs, the percentage of loss being very small.
Except in the southern part, most of Western Texas is too dry for
agriculture to be a certain resource without irrigation; but by reports
of engineers, a considerable portion of the land can be watered by
acecquias from the numerous rivers. By far the largest portion will
remain a grazing ground for all time.
In all the central and upper part of the State water-power is
abundant. All kinds of useful minerals can be had in the various
sections: iron in Burnet, Llano, Lampasas and Mason counties, of
the best qualities; copper in several places, and salt in abundance.
Gypsum is found in immense beds up in the desert region. Stretching
over ten degrees of latitude, and from the 16~ to 30~ degree of longitude
west from Washington, it is evident the State can not be described
as a whole, or in ahy general terms. Every thing said about Texas,
whether good or bad, is true-if applied to the appropriate section.
It reaches to within one-half degree of as far south as does Florida;
while its northern boundary is nearly continuous with the northern
line of Tennessee. But its climate and productions are not determined
by latitude alone. The entire State consists of one great slope-or,
perhaps more properly, a series of narrow plateaus, each breaking
gently to the next lower-from near the foot of the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. On the eastern border the slope is nearly
due south, and on the extreme south nearly due east; but in fourfifths of the State it is south-east. From the high, bare plains of the
North-west, and from the wind-caves of the Rocky Mountains, the
"blue northers" sweep down over the Llano Estacado and treeless
plains of Young and Bexar Districts, and greatly modify the climate
to a much lower latitude. But down the streams the increasing timber lessens their force. The climate is singularly equable for the width




TEXAS-CONTINUED.


431


of three or four counties, and then the heat increases rapidly till you
again get within range of the tempering breezes from the gulf.
The thermometer never ranges quite as high as in latitudes a long
way north. In Houston the climate seems nearly perfection. For
twenty years the thermometer has never been above ninety-five
degrees. At one time, in the coldest weather, it sank to ten degrees
above zero, but rarely goes lower than twenty degrees. The average
of the "heated term," one day with another, is there recorded at
eighty-four degrees. There has never been a case of sunstroke at
Houston. Only half a dozen are recorded at Galveston. Necessarily, over such an area as I have outlined, we find every product of
the temperate zone, and many of the torrid. In popular language,
then, Texas is considered in four grand divisions. Eastern Texas
includes the country from the Sabine to the Trinity River; Central
Texas, that from the Trinity to the Colorado; Northern Texas means
the two or three tiers of counties nearest Red River, and all of Young
Territory; and Western Texas the whole region from the Colorado
to the Rio Grande, including the grazing district.
The old Texans are not very enterprising. With seven million
cattle they import most of their milk and butter; there has been too
much sameness of production; the climate invites to ease and repose,
and the people are too contented. A man with ten thousand cattle
upon the range, is content to live on corn-bread and boiled beef, sit
on a hickory "shakeup" chair, sleep on shucks, live in a board or
log "shantie," chew "home-made'" tobacco, and spit through the
cracks.
"An undeveloped empire," hackneyed comparison for the West, is
literal truth applied to Texas. In 1850 the population was only
212,592; in 1860 it was 604,215; and in 1870 it was returned at
888,579. It must have increased since then at least sixty per cent. And
even now an area nearly three times as large as Ohio, with an equal
average of' fertility, and climate suitable for corn, cotton, tobacco, and
a dozen kinds of fruit, is literally begging for inhabitants.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


KANSAS REVISITED.
IN August, 1873, I took a flying tour through the new counties in
Southern Kansas. It was the year of Grangers, land leaguers and
war on the railroads.  Kansas had been. in the expressive language
of the border, "railroaded to death."  More lines had been constructed than the business of the country would demand for ten or
twenty years to come.  Except perhaps the one through line, none
of the roads were paying more than running expenses. The managers made out to pay their own salaries by the sale of lands granted
the roads by State or Nation. The capital invested in the roads was
a dead loss, as far as present dividends were concerned. But stockholders insisted on some returns, and the managers attempted to
squeeze out a few dollars by cutting down their employ's on one
side and raising freights on the other.  It took three bushels of
corn to send one to the sea-board; hence grain worth sixty cents in
New York, sold for fifteen cents in Kansas.    The premonitory
symptoms of the approaching panic were every-where manifest; but
the Grangers, feeling that something was wrong, struck at the nearest
object-the railroads.
It was a vain struggle.  Where the roads were making nothing,
it was obviously impossible for them to divide profits with the producers. On the fertile plains of South-eastern Kansas, one man with
a "walking cultivator" could attend to forty acres of corn, which
yielded in an average season from forty to eighty bushels per acre.
One man, between the middle of April and the middle of August,
could produce from fifteen hundred to forty-five hundred bushels of
corn; but in the midst of abundance they were poor in all save the
bare necessaries of life. "Droughty Kansas" was a standing joke.
On the eastern border of that area which the old geographers called
the "American Desert," corn was a drug; and flaming agricultural
reports were headed with sarcastic pictures of mammoth pumpkins,
fat cattle, and forests of corn-stalks to which the farmer ascended by
step-ladders to secure his crop. But the seven years of plenty ended
with 1873. Eighteen months after, corn in the same localities was
(432)




KANSAS REVISITED.


433


worth a dollar a bushel.  The dry year of 1874 brought with it
grasshoppers, cut-worms and chintz-bugs; and in the period between
that and the plentiful crop of 1875, the settlers suffered, as they
thought, enough for seven years of want. Is this to be the future of
Kanisas?  Must she have every fifth or seventh year a season of
drought and barrenness?  oell, yes; and
no! On the one hoand
I am   convinced         mthat            s      reed.
all the States wahich
border on the dry                                   knw
plains will have occa
sional seasons of extreine drou nht; on the
other, I am sure settlea m                            h
ment will be followed
by a modification of
the climate, and that
as the country gro ws
older the citizens will
learn how to g u a r d             "DROUGTY KANSAS."
against famine yeasrs. Their true remedy is not a war on the railroads, but, iversification of crops, the establishm en t of home manufactures, and, above all, improved methods of stock-breeding.  Kansas is emphatically a "stock country."  I am  afraid to say how
much margin there is for skillful men; but I personally know stockgrowers who have made from thirty to sixty per cent yearly on their
capital for many years in succession.  Cattle fatten upon the open
prairie for seven months in the year, and sheep a month longer.
First rate prairie hay, on which stocak  ill keep fat all winter, cain
be put up for two dollars per ton.  The climate is dry in winter,
very suitable for cattle and especially so for sheep; and there have
never been grasshoppers enough to spoil the pasture. What matters
it, then if the grain crop does fail every fifth year, when the other
2ears are so productive?  What is needed is improved stock, and a
little care to guard against the occasional winter storms.
Kansas has woman-suffrage on a small scale. Women can vote at
all school meetings; and at Geneva, in Allen County, 1I found the
community-wrestling with school politics in a new phase. The ambitious little "city" had started off with an academy, which was in
due time to grow into-a college; but, instead, it grew the other way,
28




434


WESTERN WILDS.


and was reduced to a graded school. This called for a reorganization of an adjoining district; local questions entered into the contest, and party feeling ran high. The men and women assembled on
the day appointed for a school election; the women got to quarreling,
and that, of course, drew in the men. One little man was badly insulted, upon which his large and brawny wife rushed in with an emphatic statement that "her Benny should not be imposed on." It is
hinted by local chroniclers that hard names, "cuss words," stovewood and other missiles 'flew about with disgusting recklessness.
The election was set aside for fraud, and the question at issue went
to the courts for settlement. "The ameliorating influence of women
at the polls" was not apparent in that township.
Thence southward into Neosho County, we found the fertile vales
every-where dark green with dense masses of corn. Soon after crossing the line it was evident we were in a county where the "herd
law" prevailed.  No fences were seen around the corn-fields; but
neither were there any large herds of cattle feeding on the slopes.
The Legislature has cantoned out the law-making power; each
county has the right to adopt or reject the "herd law" for itself.
Many and hot are the resulting contests. In counties where the cattle interest is strongest the law is defeated, and cultivators must
fence in their crops; elsewhere the cultivated fields have no fences,
but stock are fenced in or herded 'by the boys.  The agriculturists
state, with some point, that they are not at all afraid their corn will
encroach on the cattle; the latter must be guarded by their owners.
Through these counties one often sees the poor calves tied to the fence,
while their bovine mammas are driven to distant ridges for the day.
And, by the way, it was a calf thus tied, abandoned and dead for
want of water, which first showed that the notorious Benders had
fled.
Our party of four visited the Bender farm while yet the country
was ringing with the story of their crimes. Taking an open hack at
Cherryvale, Montgomery County, we drove seven miles north-east
over as beautiful a prairie as God ever adorned or man defiled.  At
that distance out we descended by a gentle slope to Murderer's Vale.
On the north and east rose those picturesque mounds which so romantically diversify this region; to the south and west the fertile
prairie, now dotted with -cultivated fields, or brilliant with rank
grass and flowers, spread as far as the eye could reach; between
was a slight depression of perhaps two square miles, from which a
little run put out north-east, and in the center of this happy valley




KANSAS REVISITED.


435


was the Bender farm. If the spirit of murder was there, it was certainly the loveliest form in which that dread spirit ever stood revealed. No black and blasted heath, no dark wood or lonely gorge,
such as romance makes the mute accessories of horrid crime; but the
billowy prairie, rising swell on swell, as if the undulating ocean,
changed to firm set earth, stood fixed and motionless forever.  The
house had stood in the center of this vale, two miles from the nearest
neighbor, and commanding a view of all approaches for that distance.
But a few weeks had passed since the murders were discovered, and yet
scarcely a vestige of house or stable was left.  Visitors had carried
them away by splinters!  Even the young trees in the orchard had
been dug up and removed.
The excavation beneath the house, in which the murderers had allowed their victims to bleed before burial, still bore the horrid signs.
The scant rains of summer had not washed away the blood from its
margin; it was half full of purple water.  In the garden the graves
remained just as left when the bodies were removed.  Eight bodies
were found there, including that of a girl eight years old, who was
murdered and buried with her father. They had been buried in all
sorts of positions. One man, in a round hole, lay with his head directly between his feet. A Mr. Longcor, one of the victims, lay with
his little daughter between his limbs.  Besides these eight, three
other missing men were traced to the neighborhood, bringing the
whole number of victims up to eleven.  Other murders have excited
the community, *but none with such circumstances of barbarity as
these. It appeared, from an examination of the house (the Benders
kept a sort of hotel), that the victim, when seated at the table, had
his back against a loose curtain which separated the room in two
apartments.  Behind this curtain stood the murderer, and, at a convenient moment, dealt the unsuspecting guest a deadly blow in the
back of the head with a huge hammer. He fell back, the trap-door
was raised, his throat was cut, and he was tumbled into the pit to lie
till the last drop of gore had ebbed away. Thence he was taken at
night and buried in the garden. And these fiends incarnate, after
this fearful violation of the rites of hospitality and the laws of God
and man, went on with their daily life-ate and drank and slept, and
perhaps rejoiced and made merry, with that dreadful pool, fast filling
with the blood of their victims, just beneath their feet.
The nearest neighbor was a German, named Brockman, who was
roughly treated and narrowly escaped hanging by the mob when the
murders were first discovered. His account of the family is curious




436


WESTERN WILDS.


in the extreme, though many of the details are unfit for publication.
The Benders, consisting of John Bender, Sr., his son John and daughter Kate, and their mother, were from the Franco-German portion of
Alsace, and spoke both languages fluently, as also the English. They
had formerly lived in Illinois, but.came to Kansas in 1870, and
boarded some time with Brockman; then made entry on this piece of
land.  They were fanatical spiritualists, and Kate Bender advertised
as a clairvoyant and healing medium. The young man, her brother,
who distributed her hand-bills around the country, was generally regarded as a simpleton; his mother also seemed very dull, and rarely
spoke. But Kate was the genius of the family. She stated, in her
moments of "exaltation," that she was a "savior come again, but in
female form;" that she could raise the dead, but it would be wrong
to do so. She had a " familiar spirit" which directed all the movements of the family; and several persons visited and consulted her,
either from curiosity or other motive.  Before burial they mutilated
the victims in an obscene and disgusting manner. So thoroughly was
this done that when the body of Longcor was raised it was at first
supposed to be that of a woman. The excised portions of none of the
bodies were ever found, though the ground was thoroughly searched;
and among the few neighbors who knew any thing of the family's blasphemous incantations, there are dark and horrible hints as to the disposition made of these pieces.  Should we accept the half that is told
by the neighbors, we must conclude that this was a family in whom
every natural impulse had been imbruted; that they believed themselves in league with powers to whom they offered infernal sacrifices,
and murdered for mere lust of blood. It is known that, with one exception, the victims had very little money, and that their spoils did
not altogether exceed $2,500. One man was known to have had
but twenty-five cents.
The escape of the Benders was long a great mystery.  That a family of four persons could drive to the nearest railroad station, abandon
their team there, take the train and escape all the officers and detectives set upon their track, was incredible.  Nevertheless, that was the
*     report of the local officials, and the State of Kansas, apparently, made
great exertions to recapture the fugitives. "Old Man Bender" became
a standing joke every old vagabond in the country was suspected,
numbers were arrested, and the Utah authorities actually sent a harmless
old lunatic, captured in the mountains, back to Kansas for identification. But it was noticed that Kansas officials were rather indifferent
on the subject, and in due time some of the facts leaked out. There




KANSAS REVISITED.


437


have been sensational stories about the posse overtaking the fugitives
in the groves west of the Verdigris River, where a desperate fight took
place, in which both the women were " accidentally killed." Without
going into particulars, it is safe to say that the Bender family " ceased
to breathe " soon after their flight, and that their carcasses rotted beneath the soil of the State so scandalized by their crimes.
A few miles southward bring us to Coffeyville, terminus of the
Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad, which was to have
continued on to the gulf, had not the Cherokees objected.  By the
" Treaty of 1866," which settled the present status of these tribes, they
consented that two railroads might traverse the Indian Territory, and
Congress enacted that those roads which first reached the border
should have that right. A race ensued, and the privilege was won by
the Atlantic & Pacific Road, which enters from the east, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas from the north. Coffeyville is the great cattle
depot of this section.  For the five months of cold weather the laws
of Kansas allow Texas cattle to be driven through the State; thereafter they must stop at the border, or be shipped through by rail.
None are sent either way in midsummer, and thus it results that Coffeyville and its neighbor, Parker, have one busy season in the spring
and another in the fall. The rest of the year they are dull, for border
towns; and, in the language of one of our party, "lie fourteen miles
outside of the knowledge of God."
A half-hour's ride from Coffeyville brought us to the border, and
thence into a rolling plain dotted as far as the eye could sc with vast
herds of cattle-herds numbering from a hundred to ten thousand
each.  It was a grand sight.   Some were stretched in long lines,
feeding in one direction, or grouped in the shape of a crescent; others
had collected in a dense mass, their reddish brown coats harmonizing
finely with the hue of the prairie, and their immense horns looking
not unlike a thicket of dead underbrush. The cattle men have here
rented from the Cherokees a strip fifteen miles wide, and collect their
stock there, waiting for the shipping season. These cattle, having
run wild upon the plains of western Texas, are collected by a grand
" round-up;" from the mass each owner selects those bearing his own
mark, and thence they set out on the long drive northward through
the Indian Territory, along the famous cattle trails.  Utterly unaccustomed to being herded or penned, they are almost as wild as the
buffalo; it requires both skill and daring to herd and drive them, and
the Texan vacquero is necessarily a daring horseman. The same treatment which breaks the wild spirit of the cattle hot unfrequently en



438


WESTERN WILDS.


genders disease; the tramp of from three to eight hundred miles to
the border causes " heating of the hoof," and the poisonous matter exuding therefrom is left upon the grass. Hence, say the Kansians, the
"Texas cattle fever."  The Texan animals themselves do not suffer
from it; native cattle alone, who feed after them, are infected by it.
In the early days the Kansas Legislature set apart the width of one
township, a strip six miles wide, along which Texans might be driven
to the Pacific Railroad. But in a little while settlements reached this
strip, and another was located, terminating at Ellsworth, which became for awhile the great cattle depot. Again the-wave of settlement
reached and overflowed this strip, and a third was located, with depot
at Wichita, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Road. And here is
noted a marvel indeed. As the border line of settlements steadily moves
westward, as domestic stock overrun the country, as fields are plowed
and orchards planted, the settlers say the border line between the soft
grass of the Missouri Valley and the buffalo grass of the plains, moves
westward at the rate of five miles per year!  It is common testimony
there that, as the country is settled, the climate grows more moist;
that timothy and blue-grass can now be grown where twenty years
ago only the hardy bunch-grass found a footing, and wheat on the
high plains which were once thought utterly barren.  From Cherryvale a branch railway runs out to Independence, the bustling capital
of Montgomery County, which claims three thousand inhabitants, and
has at least two-thirds as many.  Five years before, a mowing machine was run over the ground to clear away the rank grass, and after
it came the surveyors, mapping out the experimental town; in two
years thereafter it had a thousand inhabitants, and was "the future
metropolis of the South-west."  I found it just entering on the dull
times which have ruined so many bright hopes.  The second day of
my stay the Republicans had a grand mass meeting, (" to devise means
of relief from the prevailing depression and the difficulties under
which Kansas labored."  A foreign visitor would have thought himself in a community of natural orators. The speakers were lawyers,
doctors, farmers, cattle-breeders, men of all trades and men of none;
all spoke with ability, and no two suggested the same plan.  It was a
meeting of pleaslht diversity-one of the, most enjoyable I ever attended. One speaker was red hot for free trade-" all our troubles
resulted from our wretched tariff."  Another protested against any
further contraction of the currency, and still another damned the railroads and Eastern monopolists. The Congressman representing the
district was present, and suggested two measures of relief: jetties at




KANSAS REVISITED.


439


the mouth of the Mississippi, so that grain could be shipped that way
direct to Europe, and opening the Indian Territory so the railroad
could continue on to the gulf and afford an outlet.  [Loud and prolonged cheers.]  Several were emphatic that we should have "more
greenbacks;" for, said one speaker, " we have millions of corn and
no hogs to feed it to-we need more money to buy stock!"
This region is part of the Osage Diminished Reserve, so-called; and
the unreasonable savages persisted in holding on to it long after the
white man wanted it. Unlike all other Kansas Indians the Osages are
indigenous, from the Osage River in Missouri to the Arkansas: this
is their original seat, and they stubbornly resisted all offers of sale.
As soon as it was known that Government was pressing them to sell,
the whites poured in, and in four years had taken all the good land in
Montgomery County, before the Indian title was extinguished. This
cut out the railroad companies, and gave rise to no end of quarrels
and lawsuits. The Osages persist in all their aboriginal habits. The
example of their civilized kinsmen in Oklahoma, the teaching of
Catholic priests at the mission long before the whites settled here,
the persuasions of agents and the gifts of the Government were alike
unavailing. Now and then a chief wanders through the settlements,
half-clad in the grotesque finery received as annuity goods, and with
a medal on his breast to show that he has signed a treaty or done
some other service to the Government, and perhaps a dirty scrap of
paper to back up his assertion that he is "' Good Osage-heap good
Injun."  His errand generally is for old' clothes and "cold grub;"
and if a little whisky be added, the donor can have a war dance improvised for his special, benefit. Occasionally a begging Indian receives a "certificate " from some wag, which is not so favorable.' One
such, which the bearer proudly presented me, ran thus:
" To whom it may concern:
"The name of this noble red man is Hunkydori. He is. of poor but pious parents.
What he would n't steal a hound pup would n't pull out of a tan-yard. Red-hot stoves are
supposed to be safe in his presence. Give him some cold grub, or a three cent drink, if
you have any about you.
" Rev. Robert Collyer.
" Gen. O. O. Howard."
From Independence I took horse northward, across the sluggish
Elk River, and into Wilson County. This stream looks sluggish
enough now, but it often gets up in a destructive fashion. Already
eleven persons have been drowned in this vicinity. A few rods below the ford is a deep pool, visible enough now when the water on the




440


WESTERN WILDS.


ripple is but twoinches deep; but the winter before two lovers met
their death here. They were to have been married in a week, and
were on a visit to,.... friends when  a
_        heavy rain came
on. Hurrying to.
return before the:~ -stream                                            should
~~              rise, they unfort~-               unately went too
far down stream;
the buogy   was
swept into the
pool, and a little
below overturned
in the   floating
brush.     The
drowned lovers
were found next
day, two miles
below, clasped in
each other's arms.
Neodesha, capital of Wilson
County, was
named by a committee of local
philologists, appointed by the
first settlers. The
latter resolved:
first, they would
have an expressive Indian name;
-~second, they
~ i~                    would have a
" GOOD OSAGiE —HtEA? GOOD INJUN "name which no
city, man, or country had ever been called by. Thus limited, the
committee took the Osage words (pro. Ne-o-de-shay) meaning, "meeting of the waters," as the town was upon the point between the
Fall and Yerdigris rivers. Wilson  is another cattle county.  The




KANSAS REVISITED.


441


fields are fenced in, the stock fenced out; and the aristocracy of Neodesha are the cattle men. Near here a Mrs. Vickars and her
daughters had produced a fair crop of cotton from a small patch; had
carded and spun it with their own hands, and were knitting it into various articles. It is safe to say the Vickars family will get through
the "hard times" without suffering.
Westward from Neodesha I found the country rising more and
more into ridges. The first creek I crossed by a deep ford, though an
elegant bridge stood not far above, the way to it being fenced up. It
appears that Neodesha had erected this bridge at considerable expense,
only to find that the road in common use ran a few rods north of the
section line. The mulish owner of the land fenced it in, and obstinately refused the right of way, or to sell at any reasonable price;
and so Neodesha had an elegant bridge which she could not use.
Continuing my journey south and west, I saw that I was drawing near
the great "divide" between the waters flowing into the Neosho and
those flowing into the Arkansas. Nearly half the country consists of
sharp ridges, on which the land is generally fit only for pasturage.
The narrow valleys between are very fertile, but as a rule every
quarter section of land takes in some ridge; hence the settler's farm
runs into the ridges on at least two corners. By and by I come upon
two old acquaintances-prickly cactus and desert weed-sure indications that I am nearing a barren strip. Elk River has a wider
valley; the land is again fertile, and the heavy fields of corn show
good cultivation. Westward I rise again to flinty hills, and am soon
upon The Ridge, so-called, the highest point between the two rivers.
Overlooking a section twenty miles square, I see that about one-third
of it is taken up by these ridges of rock and gravel, while the intermediate vales are of great fertility. The hollows breaking out of the
ridge each way are thick set with dense scrubby timber, in which wild
cats, deer, and other game are still abundant.
Down the western slope brings me to the fertile valley of Grouse
Creek, and in due time to the village of Lazette, where I find the
citizens in impromptu convention in the public square, watching the
process of boring for cold water. Through all this section the wells
are from forty to a hundred feet deep, bored and piped; and the water
is drawn in a metal bucket, half a yard long and some three inches
wide, resembling a section of a tin spout. A valve in the bottom
opens inward, and allows the vessel to fill; then closes when the drawing up begins. The fluid is so saturated with lime that it fairly rises
up and takes a man by the throat. It is such "hard water" that one




442


WESTERN WILDS.


can scarcely bite it off.  Washer-women have great tribulations in
such a country.
As I near the Arkansas, I find the flint ridges narrowing, the vales
between them widening, and see from afar a green strip of level land,
resembling the prairies of Southern Illinois. But a vast amount of
this land is already in the hands of speculators. Uncle Sam has
done his best to prevent his boys from swindling themselves out of
their patrimony, but they will do it. All the old tricks are here repeated on a grander scale, and some new ones added. Loose-footed
young men erect a cabin, barely habitable in good weather, preempt
and remain till they get a title, then sell to a speculator and leave;
and these abandoned "dwellings" are seen dotting tlle vacant prairie
in all directions. By this operation the preemptor has a pleasant time
of it for a year, raises a small crop of " sod corn," and gets away with,
perhaps, two hundred dollars. But I rejoice in the thought that the
speculator will be fooled at last; the land's increase in value will be
less than his money would have brought at interest, and the residents
will make him " smoke" with high taxes on his land.
At the new "city" of Winfield, situated in the Arkansas Valley,
at the center of a rich agricultural region, I passed a few days of
pleasant rest. It is a cosmopolitan town. There were buffalo hunters
just returned from Harper and Comanche counties, cattle men from
Texas, Indian traders, and returned emigrants from the abandoned
settlements on Medicine Lodge Creek. These people, trusting to the
confident assertions of old citizens, that " there is no desert in Kansas, no land too dry for cultivation," had opened extensive farms on
Medicine Lodge, a little tributary of the Arkansas. Every thing they
planted grew luxuriantly till the middle of June, then began to wither.
They dammed the creek for irrigation, but that went dry, too. "Just
appeared as if the bottom dropped out," said one of the settlers"' channel as dry as a bone by the first of July." As yet it would appear that the south-western quarter of Kansas is a little too dry and
barren for the farmer.
Winfield is on White Walnut Creek, a few miles above its junction
with the Arkansas; but the level, fertile valley is here continuous between the streams. Two years before buffalo could be found in the
vicinity of town; now the nearest were fifty miles west of the river, in
Harper County. This, and Barbour, Comanche and Clark counties
are broken in all directions by deep gullies and wooded caflons, the
favorite wintering places of the bison; as long as they could winter
there undisturbed, summer found them abundant on the high plains




KAANSAS REVISITED.


443


along the Arkansas, Smoky Hill, and Republican. But when, forced
from these sheltered valleys by the winter hunters, the animals tried
to pass the cold season on the open plains northward, they froze and
starved by millions. The buffalo range is now only one-twelfth what
it was in 1830, and about one-third what it was in 1870.
Mr. William Payne, a returned surveyor, gave me a most interesting
account of that part of Kansas south and west of the Arkansas. Unless the climate changes materially, this section must long remain unsettled; in any event it can not sustain a dense population.  It is
high, dry, fearfully cut up by flint ridges, and gored by rock-walled
cations. Northward, it is more gently rolling, and along the Arkansas
there is good farming land even to the border of Colorado. In company with Mr. Payne, I journeyed leisurely up Walnut Creek, finding
the fertile valley wvell settled and cultivated. To the right, the land
rose into ridges and swells, where dwellings were rare indeed; this
was herding ground in common for the men of the valley. A furrow,
run through the prairie sod, constituted a "lawful fence;" and the
herds were kept off the growing crops by boys and women. Here and
there was to be seen a horse hitched at the gate, with neat side-saddle
tightly strapped; and, when the feeding cattle drew near the corn, a
tall and graceful Kansas girl would bounce into the saddle, and go
galloping up the slope, cracking a little whip, and calling out to the
stock in musical English. We voted it a pretty sight, and rode on.
At Eldorado, in Butler County, we took another rest, in a region
where the Kansas winds appear to have done their perfect work on
the old settlers.  The statement that an old resident " can't talk if the
wind stops blowing," is repelled as a slander; but the wind, or something else, is certainly making rapid changes in the general appearance
of the people.  They are of florid complexion, leathery aspect, and
" clipper built " as to limbs. And this sets me to wondering whether
the future American, when our country is all settled, and these rapid
changes of population cease, will not fall into permanent types, on the
principle of "natural selection and survival of the fittest."  There
will, perhaps, be the Yankee type: the people north and east'of Pennsylvania, with clear but ruddy skin, rather lean in figure, somewhat
severe in aspect, given to grim and sepulchral humor, and with that
traditional "blue stripe on the belly."  Westward and southward this
race will yield gradually to the blue, bilious type, whose central spot
will be Cairo, Illinois. They will tend to the pale olive in complexion; will be somewhat languid in their loves and hates till excited,
and then fiercely but spasmodically passionate; they will be darker




lm


444                    WESTERN WILDS.
than their Eastern congeners, and given to stimulating decoctions.
West of them will come in the bold florid type, with complexion of a
rich mahogany, with wiry frame, outline a little too extended, and
eyes and hair of the intense hues. This type will come to perfection
in Kansas. North of them will be the Western Yankees, with less
strictness than their Eastern ancestors, but more acquisitiveness. A
little way southward will begin the typical Southerner, with characteristics steadily exaggerated as we near the gulf.  But in that section
will be three rages: pure whites, pure blacks, and the "colored."
Miscegenation will pretty nearly cease when the late slaves get used to
freedom, and the betwixt-and-between colors of the South-will settle
into a 1prmanent type, without merging on either side into the pure
colors. Why not?   That happened in Mexico, after two centuries of
miscegenation, and the same causes will doubtless produce the same
effects here. In the Far West we shall have the mountaineer, of a
type totally different from all the others. Any man can see, with half
an eye, that nothing but extensive emigration, and the social mixtures
resulting therefrom, prevent climatic laws from separating us into different races. By and by emigration must cease, and nature work her
will upon us. What then? How can all these diverse races be held
together, under one democratic republican government?  Ah! that's
the conundrum some future generation must solve.
At Eldorado we leave the valley and journey over the high and
unsettled prairies to Florence, inr Marion County. The route takes
me again over the "divide" between the Neosho and Arkansas; but
here it is only a high plain without any very barren ridges as farther south. The high land is comparatively unsettled, and only the
lower valleys have many cultivated farms. It is evident we are on
the border, and pretty near the dry plains; though the settlers, especially the many real estate agents in the few towns, insist that "there
is no such thing as the American Desert —it's a myth-every section
of land in Kansas can be cultivated." Though there are a thousand of
them, and but one of me, I venture to differ a very little. At Florence I take the eastward train, and am soon down among the old
farms on the rich plains of the Kaw. But before I close my last
sketch of Kansas, a few general notes are in order:
The State is an immense parallelogram, about twice as long as wide,
containing 81,318 square miles: ten times the size of Massachusetts,
one-fifth larger than Missouri, a little more than twice the size of
Ohio, not quite three times as big as Indiana, and exceeding by onethird the area of England. I divide it into three sections: the east



S


KANSAS REVISITED.                      445
ern third is as fertile as any equal area in the world; the western
third has not yet been proved to be of much value except for grazing;
the middle third consists of both grazing and agricultural land, the
latter predominating. Thus we have 25,000 square miles of first-class
farming land, as much of mixed grazing and farming lands, and a
little more of the region fit for pasturage only. The eastern border
of the State has an average elevation of some 800 feet above the sea;
the western from 2,500 to 3,000 feet. The eastern third-25,000 square
mniles or thereabouts-when settled as thickly as rural Ohio, will sustain a population of two millions; at present it contains not quite
half a million, "and there's room for millions more."
Of land subject to preemption and homestead there is very little.
Nearly all the land of value belongs to the railroads or private owners.
Some people of my acquaintance, who talk very glibly of the immense
public domain, would be amazed to learn how little good land is still
at the disposal of government. Deducting diminished Indian reserves,
railroad grants, and lands long ago preempted and sold to speculators,
there is not much left this side of the barren plateaus. But the railroad lands in Kansas can now be b)ought at from $4 to $10 per acre,
and are generally located in old counties where church, school and
society have made great progress. The railroads, as a rule, sell on
seven years' time, with interest at seven per cent. on deferred payments.
All the fruits and grains of the temperate zone can be produced
in Kansas, and for some things it seems specially suited. In small
fruits, especially grapes, 'no State east of California can excel Kansas.
Wheat has not yet proved a perfect success in southern Kansas,
because, as I think, the farmers have not experimented sufficiently.
They still sow the same varieties, on the same system, as in Ohio.
In oats the product is amazing. Mr. A. Hall, whose farm is at the
junction of Deer Creek and Neosho River, in 1870 harvested seventy
bushels per acre from a large area; and J. C. Clark, onthe upland,
near lola, took four thousand bushels from   sixty-five acres. Of
ground crops all kinds grown in Ohio flourish exceedingly onl this
virgin soil, potatoes and turnips especially. Vines of all kinds do
well; all sorts of melons attain a size and perfection of flavor unsurpassed in this latitude. Peaches are a sure crop at least three years
out of four. Apples, for a new country are about average. But the
most money is made on cattle and sheep. The country is generally
well watered; there is still abundant range on the open prairie, and
enough of sheltered and wooded hollows. And in this respect the
settlers west of the Verdigris think they have a great advantage, as




446


WESTERN WILDS.


the ridges will not be settled and fenced in for a century; they will
remain common herding ground for many years.
West of the Arkansas, and in the north-west part of the State, the
hunter and herdsman will have free range for generations. Part of
the country is completely barren, but most of it produces the nutri-.tious bunch-grass, gama-grass, and buffalo-grass. The topography is
the result of the two geologic processes-erosion and drift. The first
great upheaval evidently created mountain heights twice or three times
as high as any now on the globe.  These have worn down to the
present Rocky Mountains; and from that wearing came the material
constituting the "plains."  Near the center of Eastern Colorado a
great spur of the mountains puts out eastward, known as the " Divide,"
and continues, gradually lessening in height, far down into Kansas.
This, and all the adjoining slopes, are composed of rounded stones,
pebbles, and sand, the washings of ages; and over and among them
there is just soil enough to produce hardy grass, but not enough for
good farming land, unless upon the lower slopes and valleys.
Kansas is not paradise; but it presents many advantages. There is
no section of the West where" --  Grain and flour and fruit
Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er."
But there is abundant room in this State for half a million families,
in localities where one has room to grow, where the laws are peculiarly favorable to beginners, where society is well organized, where
labor will surely result in a competence, and all who will be virtuous
may be happy.




CHAPTER XXIX.


COLORADO.
THE summer of 1874 found me once more engaged in mining operations on a small scale-this time in Colorado.  The first of June I
set out hastily from Saint Louis for the mountains, anticipating great
enjoyment in the journey across the plains.  But the change in two
years had been wonderful; where we saw buffalo in May, 1872, by
uncounted thousands, we now looked in vain. Save the grizzled and
miserable looking captives in the station corrals, and rarely a worn out
old fellow in some hollow, not a buffalo is now to be seen on the Kansas Pacific, where only seven years ago they actually obstructed the
track in places.
Within the memory of men still living these animals ranged as far
east as the Osage in Missouri; once they inhabited nearly all that part
of our country east of the Great Basin. Gov. Thomas L. Young, of
Ohio, relates that when his party crossed the plains in 1854, they saw
a herd in the Platte Valley fourteen miles long and two or three miles
wide; and Horace Greeley vouches for herds almost as extensive,
which, he says, could only be estimated by millions.  Such immense
aggregations are only to be accounted for by the tendency of these
animals to mass together while crossing streams in their migration.
At the old Platte crossing emigrants were often hindered for days by
the buffalo moving northward. As late as 1865 their range was three
hundred miles wide, and from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande.
Now they are limited to two small sectiong: the first includes northwestern and western Texas and Indian Territory, with adjacent portions of Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado; the latter a small section
of western Dakota and the adjacent region.  At present rates only
twenty more years are needed for their extermination. Millions have
been slaughtered for their hides and tongues alone; millions more in
cruel wantonness, miscalled " sport." Other millions died in the severe
winter of 1871-'72, their range in the sheltered valleys being restricted; and a year after long trains of box-cars were loaded with
their bones, which the poverty-stricken Kansians gathered and
shipped eastward.  So disappears the noblest of our wild game.
(447)




448


WESTERN WILDS.


/


The tourist who would see a buffalo in his natural state must not
long delay.
Denver had wonderfully improved within two years; but the
chronic "hard times" had visited it with fearful severity. There had
been a decline in real estate of at least forty per cent., and not long
after a still further decline occurred. The excursionists from the East
were sixty per cent. less numerous than in 1873. Watering places languished and hotel-keepers looked sick. But if there is trade in Colorado, Denver must take toll therefrom: for it has the location.
Take half a wagon-wheel; imagine each of the spokes a pass, leading
up south-west or north-west, through the mountains to some mining
region, and you will have a tolerable idea of Denver and its tributaries. From this place as a (enter, railroads or first-class turnpikes
lead up to Georgetown, Central City, Blackhawk, Bowlder, and a
dozen mountain towns of less note.
The city is on the slope at the junction of Cherry Creek and the
Platte River.  Both are mere rivulets usually, but they occasionally
get up in a way that's rather frightful.  In 1864 a freshet took away
nearly all the town as it then stood, and the people afterwards built
a little farther up the slope. 'The city was on first view an Agreeable
surprise to me.  I had heard so often and so long, in Salt Lake City,
that that was the only really beautiful town in the mountains-that it
had become a part of my creed, as a man will sometimes absorb without question what he hears reiterated for years.  But many people
would prefer Denver, on the score of beauty alone.  The advantage
of Salt Lake City is that it is twice as old, and its shade trees and
shrubbery have had more time to grow.   But in Denver we find
bright irrigating streams, fine gardens, shade trees, grass plats and
many elegant residences.  In.the last respect this far exceeds Salt
Lake.   But the noticeable point of difference is in churches, schoolhouses and daily papers.  In the two former Denver will compare
favorably with any Eastern city of its size, and in the last exceed
most of them. A hundred little matters illustrate, in a marked degree, the difference between this progressive, homogeneous people and
that of the Mormon capital.  At the Post-office, of an evening, one
finds almost the population of an average Western city, and has to
take his turn after long waiting.  At Salt Lake I never saw a crowd
at the delivery large enough to be troublesome.  This office gives
out three times as much mail as that at Salt Lake. Here are a people
who read and write, think and question, deliberate, examine and come
to a conclusion: there a people who open their mouths and swal



COLORADO.


449


]ow what the shepherd gives them;
obey their bishop
like good chil-1
dren; believe the
whole  outside
world to be
doomed, and,
therefore unworthy of correspondence except
on indispensables.
After a pleasant
week in Denver
we (I had taken
a better half
while    in  the
States) departed
for  Georgetown
by way of the
Colorado Central
and   NarrowGuage. The former runs only to
Golden City, at
the foot of the
mountains, where
we transfer to the
Narrow-Guage.
There    Clear
Creek, which has
been a foaming
mountain torrent
through all its
upper   course,
emerges from the
mountains and
supplies irrigation
to a fertile valley
fifteen miles long.
From this on our


AFFLUENT OF CLEAR CREEK.
29




450


WESTERN WILDS.


course is up a steep grade and through the domain of the sublime and
beautiful.  The narrow train dashes from side to side of the rocky
cation, now rushing along at fifteen miles an hour when there is a
short stretch of easy grade, and again toiling slowly up and over the
rocks; one minute we are under an overhanging bluff a thousand feet
in height, and the next out ill an open valley where the widening
cation gives us a broad view of green plats, timbered hills and the
deep blue sky beyond. At every pause we hear the continuous roar,
a soothing monotone, of Clear Creek dashing down its rocky channel,
a limpid stream when unobstructed, but churned to milk-white foam
where bowlders choke its bed; now to our right, now to our left, and
again directly under us, as the train repeatedly crosses it to gain elevation At times the cliffs so crowd upon the stream that a way for the
iron track has been blasted out of the stone wall; and again the roadway is upon immense table rocks in the very bed of the stream.
It was a triumph of engineering.  The route was only practicable
for a narrowr-guage road, on which short curves and abrupt rises present no great obstacle to the little engine and narrow cars.  All
the slopes are covered with dark green forests, and even the overhanging cliffs fringed with delicate pines, softening the outlines,
adding fresh charms, and preventing that gloomy grandeur which
so marks the mountain scenery of Arizona.   Here and there the
solid wall lining the cafion seemed split to its very base, and out of
the narrow cleft flowed an affluent of Clear Creek, its waters clear as
alcohol.
The main line of this road runs up North Clear Creek to Blackhawk and Central City; the left branch is to run to Georgetown, but
now terminates at Floyd Hill, leaving us eighteen miles of staging to
reach the metropolis of the richest silver district in the new State.
Most of this stage is through a broader cafion, the timbered hills rising three thousand feet on both sides. Towards the last we enter a
narrow gorge, then suddenly the cation widens again, and Clear
Creek is seen flowing placidly down the center of a tolerably level
tract, some two miles long and from a quarter to half a mile wide.
At the upper end of this plat, on the last considerable piece of level
land this side of the mountains, stands Georgetown-an attractive Alpine hamlet, 8,410 feet above the level of the sea, Tourists by the
Pacific Railway think themselves away up when at Sherman, but here
is a prosperous community of three thousand people, and a handsome
town, a hundred feet higher than Sherman. Here the creek and
cafion run nearly north. Southward, the town ends abruptly against




COLORADO.


451


Leavenworth Mountain, which rises twelve hundred feet above the
Barton House-set on a rocky offset at its foot. But the visible
peak is only the end and lowest point of Leavenworth, a spur from
the Rocky Mountains, which are here known as "the Range."
The fairer section of our party are startled at the crowds of men in the
streets, not a woman being visible; for this is Saturday evening, when
fifteen hundred men from the hills get their mail here, besides the resident population; while the whole district probably does not contain
three hundred females. After a week's rest at the Barton House, we
take for the season a roomy cabin in a little pine grove, at the foot of
Griffith Mountain, where we dwell in all comfort and coolness for three
months. The first sensation of visitors from the low country is a
slight languor, and a wonderful tendency to sleep. The nights are so
cool and the air so light. For a fortnight we sleep ten hours every
night, and can scarcely get through the day without a nap. But if we
rashly attempt to run up-stairs, or even hurry on level ground, the laboring lungs swell the chest, and the heart pounds away on the ribs as
if it would give loud warning to " go slow." But the thin air is also invigorating; the cold nights and sharp morning air are wonderful appetizers; while the days are rarely too warm for comfort, and in no
long time one feels his vigor redoubled, and fairly rejoices in high
climbs.
When it is said that the Rocky Mountains have an average elevation of 12,000 feet above the sea, the Eastern imagination is apt to
picture them as rising abruptly two miles or more above the plains;
but in fact nearly half this elevation is gained by the traveler before
he reaches the mountains. All the way from Kansas City, 800 feet
above the sea, to Denver, 5,600 feet high, and still twenty miles from
the mountains, one constantly travels up-hill; and at the station on the
Kansas Pacific, where one gets his first dim and distant view of Pike's
Peak, he is higher than the summit of any mountain in Pennsylvania.
Colorado contains no land less than 3,000 feet high. Denver is one
mile above New York, and the prosperous cities of Georgetown and
Central City 3,000 feet higher still. Manifestly all the conditions of
animal and vegetable life are changed, and time only is needed to produce in this Alpine State a new and peculiar variety of the genus
American. The miner lives at an average elevation of 3,000 feet
above the agriculturist, but in most of the large cations wheeled
carriages can be driven 2,000 feet higher: over grassy meads and
through dense pine forests, beside brawling brooks, and again out
upon bare rocky flats, to the foot of the summit ridge, which rises,




452


WESTERN WILDS.


abrupt and rocky, 2,000 feet above the timber line. In summer one
may go the foot of Gray's Peak with less inconvenience than to any of
the secluded mountain towns of Pennsylvania. But it is the last
2,000 feet that cost.
Let us map out the district about Georgetown, beginning at the
quartz mill, a mile below the city.  First to our right, and westward, is the lowest of the mining localities, Douglas Mountain.
Farther along, and risingjust to the west of the lower part of Georgetown, is Democrat Mountain, nearly bald on the summit, not because
it is above the timber line, but because of an immense slide some centuries ago. Silver Creek Gulch, a slight depression, separates it from
Republican Mounrtain. Several hundred feet higher than Democrat,
and crowned with heavy timber to its summit, this latter rears an
awful front two thousand feet above the center of town. The bald
front seems nearly perpendicular, and has projections the size of the
largest church in New York, and perpendicular faces here and there
a hundred feet square —a sight of unwearying sublimity. Seen from
directly in front, that is, anywhere in town, it would seem that no
living thing but a bird could go up or down that face; and yet there is
a winding trail along the rocky offsets by which a few daring men descend rather than make a long circuit; and on the Fourth of July,
1875, a French miner ascended to the summit, planted a flag, and returned to the hotel in one hour and forty-eight minutes. This he did
on a bet of ten dollars that he could do it in two hours. It's a pity
for him, perhaps, that he could only raise ten dollars, for he could
have had takers to any amount. On the summit is a flag three feet
long which can only be seen from town by a good eye, and then looks
about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. A little beyond, the face of
the mountain bends toward the south-west, and continues two miles
further, to Cherokee Gulch. Beyond comes Sherman Mountain. At
their junction is the great mining center, from which I know not how
many millions in silver ore have been taken.  Sherman runs on
nearly a mile further to Brown Gulch, beyond which is Brown
Mountain, the last in that direction which has any relation to this
district. All of these gulches are very shallow, and do not really divide the mountain; the formation of veins is continuous across most
of them, and some of the richest lodes extend across the deepest gulch.
On the left, or east side of the cation, all the range is known as
Griffith Mountain, while from the south Leavenworth abuts sharply
on the town. West of it is Right-hand Gulch, down which comes a
good sized stream by way of Devil's Gate and half a dozen more beau



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tiful cascades; to the east is Left-hand Gulch, a rocky trough with
great fall, in which the stream is a constant succession of cascades and
rapids, all the way up to its origin in the snow-banks on the Range.
Only two hundred yards above the Barton House a square reservoir
was blasted out of the rocky bottom, and in that short distance fall
enough for the water-works is secured to throw water over the spire
of the Union School building-the highest in town. This stream is
cold as spring-water all summer, and quite as pure and healthful.
Just across town, on the face of Republican Mountain, is a beautiful
fall of thirty feet or so, and all around tiny streams pour down
from ice-cold springs or snow-banks near the summit —a natural water
system  not to be surpassed. The two main streams unite in the
center of town to form Clear Creek; above the mills it is crystal clear
and sweet to the taste, below them it is now foul with " tailings" and
the wash of poisonous ores, and contains no fish, though once lively
with them.
Our party celebrated the Fourth of July, 1874, on the dividing
ridge of the Rocky Mountains, at least 13,00Q feet above the level of
the sea.. There we loosed the American eagle, and with polysyllabic
speech and patriotic songs moved him to soar and scream. We
straddled the backbone of America, sat down on the ridge pole of the
continental water-shed, ate sardines from California and crackers from
Boston, and drank from two ice-cold rivulets which flowed from the
same snow-bank, the one to the Atlantic and the other to the Pacific.
The occasion was inspiring. Of course we did and said all those patriotic things which are customary on such occasions; the speeches
being the result of a geometrical progression beyond ordinary patriotic remarks in proportion to our elevation, and proving us the greatest, freest, wisest people in the world. Whether the British lion
howled and the effete despotisms trembled, is not known; but it is to
be presumed they did. The real enjoyment was in the trip to the
summit, whereof a few notes are now in order, beginning with our
departure from the rancheria of Charley Utter, scout, guide, and
equine purveyor.
A summer morning in Georgetown combines the perfect in climate
and scenery. At 8 A. M., the sun is still behind Griffith Mountain,
and the city in a shaded amphitheater walled in by cool mountains.
But this promises to be one of the few warm days; and, as we tighten
straps upon the mountain bronchos, selected for their skill in going
up high and narrow ways, the pack-trains are toiling wearily, by carefully devised and winding dugways, up the neighboring cliffs. Over




454


WESTERN WILDS.


the north end of Leavenworth, on rocky ways, with an incline sometimes of fifty degrees, our bronchos carried us with ease and safety; for
one of these native horses could easily go up and down any stairs in
Cincinnati. Reaching the main road again, above the reservoir, we
followed a gentle up-grade for three miles to the first climb.  There
the stream plunges down a series of cascades, while the road winds in
and out on the face of the cliff, to reduce the nearly perpendicular wall
to a series of passable inclines: at times the frowning granite threatening to close in and cut us off; at times the foaming stream sinking
clear out of sight in the gorge itself had fashioned, its presence only
proved by the roar and spray that issued from the granite jaws; and
again road and stream came together, and our panting animals cooled
themselves in fording the torrent. At this level we enter on the
heavy forests of mountain pine. On all the trees the limbs slope
downward from the trunk, the result of heavy winter snows. New
beauties appeared at every step. Cold springs bubbled up near the
road, and the streams therefrom often formed little ponds which were
lined with lilies. Other flowers, too, became more numerous; and, in
the timber, the dark green pines, spruces, firs, and hemlocks grew
dense and formed a heavy shade. Occasionally we passed a winter
camp of miners, where the stumps standing ten or twelve feet high
suggested the work of Anakim; but it seems they were cut off level
with the surface when the snow was at its deepest.
Another climb of a thousand feet brought us to the region of
mountain flowers. There were myriads, of all colors-white, red, and
yellow predominating, all of the brightest hues. Singularly enough,
all the open spaces were densely matted with buffalo grass, of the same
species as that on the plains, which our horses ate with avidity. As
we progressed, new species of flowers continually appeared, all small,
and growing smaller every mile. Another climb of some five hundred
feet, and there was a sudden change in the timber. The tall, graceful
pines disappeared, and in their stead came a scraggy, scrubby growth,
with a tendency to "crawl" along the ground, or bunch together. It
was evident we were nearing the. timber line. It is not cold, as many
suppose, which causes this "crawling" (thus the mountaineers, scientists call it " procumbence"); for the timber line is reached at about
the same altitude in the tropics, and on latitude 50~. It is the want of
oxygen in the air, by reason of which the scant growth can not attain
any height, but leans and grows along the ground. A few more steps,
and we were out of timber entirely, 11,000 feet high, and still the summit stood out clear and distinct, 2,000 feet above us. We were now




I


COLORADO.                        455
almost on level ground, a sort of plateau bordering the highest peaks;
and, but for the view to the eastward over the timber, might have
fancied ourselves on the plains at the foot of a sharp, rocky range.
We were in the midst of mountain meadows, every little slope being
rich and green with grass and willow brush; but in every gorge, both
above and below us, were the hard accumulations of snow and ice,
yielding only scant rivulets to the fervent glances of the sun. Ancd
yet all around these snow banks were bright borders of flowers of the
same varieties we had seen below, but so tiny that they resembled
colored grass rather than flowers.
On this plain stood the ruins of Argentine City, which, ten years before, boasted a thousand inhabitants. With the first discovery of silver
cn the summit, it seemed to be in such immense lodes that its richness
was considered inexhaustible, and a city sprung up like magic at the
edge of the timber line. But, when they got their lodes developed,
they found that though rich in lead they run only sixty to a hundred
ounces in silver to the ton, while no man could do more than half a
day's work in that rarified air; the same wages being required, and
provisions even more expensive, and so all the mines there were abandoned as unprofitable. Still Argentine stands untenanted, and millions of pounds of lead and silver ore wait for owners.  It was a
strange and romantic scene: the abandoned town in the midst of a
green meadow; banks of flowers all around, dotting the sloping plain
in red, blue, and yellow; right among them heavy snow drifts, fifty
feet deep in the gulches, from which ran tiny rivulets to water the
grass and flowers; rising before us the last and highest range, seamed
and scarred in every direction, and shining over all the hot sun of
July. To stand in the sunshine one might think it no cooler than in
Georgetown; but sitting in the shade it soon appears that the heat is
all in the direct rays of the sun; the air is really cool. While the
ridge was too abrupt to be scaled in front, a gentle slope led away to
the north-east, covered with buffalo grass nearly t6 the summit. Up
this we toiled for an hour, reaching the highest point at 11 A. M., and
finding there some ten acres of tolerably level land, and another wonder. While the whole mountain is granite, the surface is covered with
sandstone rocks, which show marks of long abrasion.  This is a complete contradiction; geologically these stones do not belong there.
Local geologists have decided that they were brought from the far
North and dropped there by an iceberg, toward the close of the glacial
period.
Toward the south-west the Pacific slope begins in an abrupt fall of




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WESTERN WILDS.


fifteen hundred feet from the summit, no descent at that point being
possible; but the grandest scene is to the north-west. Sloping down
at an angle of eightydegrees, but still passable to men and mountain
sheep, a cliff sinks twenty-five hundred feet to a beautiful valley.
Across this, and seemingly not more than half a mile away, is Torrey's
Peakl a little to the left of it, separated by a complete ice-gorge, is
Gray's Peak, so near that it seems one might fire a pistol ball across
the chasm. It is at least five miles in a direct line from where we
stand. Between us the green valley is dotted with snow banks, and.the little streams running from them now appear ice-locked. But examination through a field-glass shows that what looks like ice is really
white foam; the rivulets are strong streams, fed all summer by the
melting snows from the gorge between the great peaks. For an hour
we amused ourselves by loosening the movable bowlders and prying
them over the cliff.  If they escaped the first obstruction, they acquired a velocity that sent them bounding over the rocky points below,
then rushed with speed, that almost made the head swim, down the
granite troughs, jumping fifty or a hundred feet at a time, till, carried
by a rebound clear out of their course, they struck on some flinty peak
near the bottom and were ground to powder, the dust flying in the air
like the spray dashed up when a cannon-ball glances on the water.
Two years before a granite bowlder, loosened by a blast, from the
mountain east of Georgetown, estimated at two tons' weight, came down
the two thousand feet, and struck on one end of a blacksmith shop,
while the owner was, luckily, a few rods away. Every plank and
timber was ground to splinters; and, it is perhaps needless to add, that
smith rebuilt a little farther out in the valley.
Two months later we visited Gray's Peak, and if we had consulted
all the almanacs from "Zadkiel" to "Danbury," we could not have
chosen a worse time. December would have been better, as we should
then have had cold weather all the way, and suffered no sharp contrasts. As it was, the array of red eyes and peeled noses was discouraging.  Our party of ten included three correspondents, four
ladies, a college professor, and two indefinitely classed as young men.
It is agreed by all old settlers, that no one can decide on the weather
up there two hours ahead, unless it has just cleared up with a cold
wind; then it will probably be clear for a day or two. Therefore,
though the morning was the darkest of the season, and a dense fog
settling down on Georgetown, the general judgment was that we
should soon drive through and get above the fog, and have clear
weather at the Peak. So, well supplied with wraps, we set out with




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457


the mercury at 40~, and the fog thickening.  Our route lay along
Main Clear Creek, by Silver Plume, Brownville, The Terrible Mine,
Old Bakerville, and many a scene of gloom and grandeur; now in a
forest of dense pines, again in a narrow gorge, and a little later along
a rocky dugway, hundreds of feet above the stream. Though wrapped in a fog constantly growing denser, our encouraging driver insisted we should soon get through it; anrid, though now chilled and discouraged, there was sunshine and a bright day above. We did get
above it at last; but, just as we emerged from the fog, the upper
moisture fell upon us in a terrific storm of sleet. In ten minutes the
road was a glare of ice, our wrappings stiff as armor, and the horses'
manes and tails white with hoar frost, while their smoking bodies indicated that they were the only members of the party comfortably
warm. Then came delusive signs of clearing off; the sun sent an
occasional ray through the rifted clouds, the sleet ceased to fall,
patches of blue sky appeared here and there; and, to our delighted
eyes, the vast red and yellow range of McClellan Mountain rose suddenly before us, almost over our heads, its snowy and icy summit glittering in the sunlight like an exhalation from the mist. But that
which brought hope to us, settled the case with our experienced guide,
who marked that the rock rabits (conies?) ran from covert to covert
with a peculiar low moaning cry, like that of a bird in pain; that the
mountain ground-squirrels (gophers?) did not venture out, and that
the loose stock on the range was hurrying into the densest timber in
the canon. Animal instinct was ahead of our science, and all the local
probabilities indicated a gale. We reached Kelso's cabin, a mile and
a half from the foot of the Peak, at 10 A. M.; but were scarcely
housed before the storm came in all its fury. Ten minutes before, the
sun was shinlling, the clouds floating away to the south-east, and all of
us expecting a beautiful day. Suddenly a vast bank of black clouds
moved down the cafion from the neighborhood of the Peak, seeming
to have the weight and momentum of a solid body; a storm of sleet
rattled against the windows, and sifted through the branches of the
pines; McClellan Peaks, but five minutes before so bright and beautiful, faded away into blackness; a rumbling sound, as of distant surf,
was heard, only the trees nearest the windows were visible, and the air
was filled with driving snow. It was no use to think of making the
trip that day; one and all recognized the fact, and set in to make the
time as jolly as possible. We could not have been snowed in with
better company, or in a better place, for Kelso's is literally a gem in
the mountains. The name, Kelso's, is applied to an irregular collec



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WESTERN WILDS.


tion of log and frame cabins, built years ago by the Sonora Mining
Company, and now kept as a hotel by Mrs. Z. M. Lane and Son.
There are bedding and accommodation for fifteen persons, including
first-class fare, warm rooms, library and material for parlor amusements. The cabin is just below the timber line, in the last grove,
though a very gentle slope of mountain meadow, rich with grass and
flowers, extends a mile and a half beyond, to the foot of the range.
The timber line is every-where at about the same elevation, whether
in the tropics or far north; and by this token we know that Kelso's
cabin is about 11,000 feet high. Nothing can be grown for the use of
man, but the grass on all the slopes is exceedingly rank and nutritious.
About four months in the year the climate is delightful; then comes
a week or two of severe storms, one of which caught us, and after that
a month of Indian summer, whose glories are unsurpassed by any thing
in New England. The grass retains its nourishing qualities until the
snow is too deep for the cattle to paw it away in feeding; but in May,
though the old grass is apparently just the same, the melting snow
seems to have taken all the sweetness out of it. Back of the cabin
(westward) rises Kelso Mountain, perhaps fifteen hundred feet above
the creek, containing several valuable mines; east of it the almost
perpendicular McClellan range puts out north-east from the summit.
Along its ragged and forbidding sides are the Vesper, Stevens, and
several other very rich silver lodes, their value greatly lessened by the
difficulty of reaching and working them.
The storm continued five hours; then a council of weather was
called, and decided it would be clear by midnight. Captain Lane was
to rise at 2 A. M., and, if the skylooked favorable, all were to get up
and make the ascent in time to witness sunrise from the Peak. He
found the mercury at that hour only five degrees above zero, with a
sharp wind and penetrating frost; and decided, in his own mind, that
"these tender buds of the valley could never endure such a trip," and
let us slumber on till daylight. Every body awoke hungry, and declared the almanac mistaken; it was Christmas instead of September
3d, and we must have a Christmas breakfast. Mrs. Lane did the occasion justice, especially in the item of cream from cattle that only
yesterday morning grazed on bunch-grass, now buried under six inches
of snow, and raspberries picked from the hill-sides below the cabin.
But summer luxuries were nowhere. Hot coffee, hot steaks, doughnuts, and griddle-cakes led the demand.
We started on the ascent at 7, with Captain Lane for a guide.
There was not a cloud in the sky, and the bright sunshine was just




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459


spreading over the highest peaks, changing their icy glitter to a dazzling variety of white, green, and yellow tints. The storm left us one
horse short. So Mr. Merrill, journalist, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and
the writer, had to "divide time" on a single pony. The walking was
comparatively easy to the foot of the Peak, then suddenly the walker's
breath gave out and he took " tail hold." Then ensued a scene for a
comic almanac. With Merrill on deck and the, author towing behind, we would struggle ahead for a hundred yards or so, the horse
blowing like a porpoise and the man on foot gasping for breath, unable even to say "whoa;" then the author would mount, and Merrill
take the tail. In vain the others, now fast getting ahead of us,
shouted: "For shame! Let go." Neither dared to loosen his hold,
knowing he could never make it alone. When first on foot one would
feel peculiarly vigorous, as if he could run right up the slope without
a gasp; but after ten or twelve steps the breath would suddenly give
out, and leave him completely exhausted. Only a minute or two was
required, however, for a renewal of lung-power. Merrill and I were
both asthmatics, and the preceding day had been any thing but favorable for us; even the poor horse might be counted a "pilgrim," as he
had not been higher than Georgetown for a month. The air, too,
besides being so attenuated, was very cold; mane, tail, and nose-hairs
were soon white with frost, as were our beards; and I fancied I could
see a look of almost human reproach in the pony's eye as he cast
frequent glances at the man who held his tail. It was a mean advantage to take-the hill was too steep for him to kick-but necessity
justified it.
The morning sun had shone on the snow but an hour or so when
bright fleecy clouds began to rise and obscure the view. Then a
strong wind sprang up, and the mist in long, filmy lines swept around
and buried us in its chilly depths. For five minutes at a time we
could see but a rod or two ahead, and those who had one horse apiece
soon left Merrill and myself far behind. Even the lady, whose guide
and guard I should have been according to law, left us at the last
"hog-back," being on a spirited little pony that was determined to
keep up with the rest. All the way we could plainly hear their voices
far above us, the shout ringing with a peculiar metallic clink, like the
" honk, honk " of wild geese, heard over our heads against a wintry
sky. At intervals a strong wind would spring up from the south-west
and sweep all the mist far away over McClellan Mountain; then we
could look back over the sub-ranges and foot-hills and see the clouds
banked far out on the plains, at least five thousand feet below us.




460


WESTERN WILDS.


Then back would come the breeze and with it the mist, and we would
struggle on invisible to each other.
About two-thirds of the way up, the elements presented a wonderful
sight. The wind coming around the peaks in two currents created a
vast whirlpool in mid-air, the clouds formed in an immense oval, with
an opening in the center, down which we could see the deep blue sky,
millions of miles away. The sunlight brightened the inner edges of
this oval, about which the clouds were rushing round and round with
a swiftness that made the head swim to witness it. From this center
outward the clouds grew darker by easy gradations till lost in two immense black columns, one coming around Torrey's Peak from one direction, the other meeting it from Gray's. Just at this time we of the
rear-guard were passing along the last "hog-back," which is, perhaps,
a rod wide and nearly level; to the right the face of the mountain,
now covered with snow and ice, slopes away at an angle of 500 for
some two thousand feet, while to the left is an open chasm with perpendicular sides and a depth of seven hundred feet. Fortunately, the
trail there is over, gravel and loose stones, instead of solid rock, and
there is no danger of slipping. But a few weeks since, a lady who
went up for a sunrise view, on returning by this point, fainted at sight
of what she had passed in the dark. The danger is all in the looks.
A horse with any experience can go along a ridge two feet wide just
as safely as on a broad turnpike. In 1874, a miner got benighted on
McClellan Mountain, and rode a mountain pony down one of those
almost perpendicular gorges, where no man dare ride in the daytime and with a sight of the danger. The horse took the nearest cut
for home, and only added another instance to the truth that the instinct of a mountain pony is more certain than the reason of a man.
Had the rider tried to guide him down by day, it would have been
death to both.
Soon after this passage a loud shout frowm the upper air announced
that the party had completed the ascent; and hurrying on as fast as
our lungs would allow, in half an hour we were with them. Just then
a strong wind swept away the clouds, and for ten minutes we enjoyed
all the glory of the view-a free outlook for a hundred miles or more
tin all directions. East of us McClellan Mountain seemed to run down
with perfect regularity till it merged in Leavenworth, and that again
in Griffith; but that low the clouds were massed so heavily that all
view of the plains and foot-hills was shut off. A heavy storm seemed
to be in progress at Denver, and the dark clouds hung above that
place, but still eight thousand feet below us. Southward we could




COLORADO.


461


catch but fitful glances of Pike's Peak, as it seemed to be wrapped in
vast accumulations of cloud which revolved around it as a center of
attraction. Northward and toward Long's Peak the view was much
the same. The clouds seemed driving with force against theJhighest
part of the range. Across the cations they would move with surpris

SOUTH-WEST FROM GRAY'S PEAK.
ing swiftness, the sunlight striking through and giving them a soft and
fleecy whiteness; but encountering the- peaks those behind apparently
shoved on those in front till they heaped up in heavy black masses, too
dense for the solar rays to penetrate them. Down the Pacific Slope,




462


4WESTERN WILDS.


south-westward, the view for a long time was uninterrupted., From
our standpoint the hill fell off evenly, and too steep for descent, for
three thousand feet or more to a beautiful green valley, dotted with
dense groves of fir and pine; and beyond that we could see over the
sub-ranges and look directly down into a score of narrow valleys,
through which as many clear streams coursed like narrow bands
of silver-all bearing rapidly downward to Bear Creek and Snake
River, and thence out to the Great Colorado. Here and there appeared little mining camps, seemingly set like toy villages on the
green plats, in among the heavy pines, or against the red and yellow
faces of the cliffs.
But this extended view was brief.  First came a dead calm, and
then a strong wind from the south-west drove the mist over the scene.
To the north-west only was the view clear, and in that direction we
saw merely the broken peaks in which head the two Laramies and
minor affluents of the North Platte. Beyond them, and a mile and a
quarter vertically below us, were Laramie Plains, now hidden from our
sight by dense clouds. The cold had meantime grown too intense for
the most hardy, and we crouched down behind a stone wind-breaker.
which successive tourists have erected. The brandy, which no one
should ascend without, was produced and a light lunch partaken of;
but two of the ladies completely succumbed, and recourse was had to
ammonia and chafing the hands and face with snow. No serious suffering followed, though some people are greatly affected at such
heights. Those of a hemorrhagic tendency often have bleeding at the
nose. The only thing that bothers me is a sort of over-action of the
heart and a heavy fluttering in the temples, if I move faster than a
slow walk. Most of us suffered only from cold; and the most hardy
remained upon the summit but an hour. On the descent there was
one slight accident.  An unskillfully fastened buckle turned in the
girth and so irritated the horse, which a lady was riding, that he took
the bit in his teeth and started for home.  He descended all that
windingv way in less than three-quarters of an hour-we were two
hours ascending-reaching the cabin an hour before us, while she, to
use her own words, "hung on to the pommel and trusted in God."
That was, however, the best thing to do, even if the horse had been at
his natural gait, for in attempting to guide one is much more apt to
disconcert him. I am willing enough to be carried up a mountain,
but I prefer to walk down, which I did in this instance, reaching the
base in an hour and a quarter.
It was now past noon; the snow was entirely melted from the




COLORADO.


463


mountain meadows, just above the timber line; the late ice-locked
rivulets again ran unvexed, and the brawling brooks were musically
pouring their increased waters into Clear Creek. From the summit,
even in the hottest weather, all these streams appear as if frozen solid;
the eye can perceive no motion, and the white foam over the ripples
has the exact appearance of ice. Our ride over the grassy slope to the
cabin was delightful, the air having moderated to a pleasant warmth.
McClellan Mountain, to our right, presented only here and there a
patch of snow. Nearly all the west face of it is inaccessible, there being but a few ravines filled with earth slides up which zigzag trails
have been with great difficulty constructed. From our road the cabin
and ore-house of the Stevens' mine seems as if suspended against the
cliff in mid-air, the chains which, anchored into the solid rock, hold
it in place being, of course, invisible to us. One could scarcely avoid
the conclusion that it maintained position contrary to the law of gravity. A few rods west of it is one of these earth slides mentioned, and
up this a man and donkey were slowly working their way along a zigzag which looked to us nearly perpendicular.  This trail leads upto
a point even with the mine, and thence a way is worked along the
face of the rock to the cabin. In addition to all these difficulties, the
air is so rare that few men can do a full day's work there, but the ore
is so rich that the Stevens pays well for working. Evidently there
never can be sudden inflation from an increase of the precious metals,
for the difficulty of getting will always make them valuable.
I strained my eye to find the cabin of the Vesper Mine, which we
visited on the 4th of July, and finally saw it within a few rods of the
summit, looking like a pigeon-house stuck on a rock. Below it was
the gulch and earth slide, with a slope of seventy degrees for 2,500 feet,
down which we rolled the granite bowlders. After a good warming
and a hot feed at the cabin, we gladly took carriage at 3 P. M.! and,
all the way being down-hill, reached Georgetown at five, delighted,
disgusted, frost-touched, tired and sleepy.
Moral-Go to the summit between June 15th and August 15th, or
wait till settled cold weather.
The three months I spent among the mines of Colorado were among
the most pleasant in my life. In August I came down to Denver
and thence, by way of Bowlder City, visited the rich Caribou District,
which was just then exciting so much attention.  Leaving Denver at
4 A. M., with the Sunday morning express sent out by the Rocky
Mountain News, we drove north-west over the high plains lying between that city and Bowlder. This region is now dotted with arti



464


WESTERN WILDS.


ficial lakes, all stocked with trout. All the irrigating canals, taken
out as far as possible up the mountain streams, are carried high up
on the ridges, and into every convenient depression an acccquia leads
sufficient water to maintain a crystal lake.  This insures, in a few
years, an abundant supply of fish; and local scientists affirm that the
increase of water surface will eventually give this section more rainfall, and redeem much of the high land for agriculture. Bowlder has
a romantic location.  Just above the town, westward, the mountain
rises very abruptly nearly two thousand feet, its front split by the narrow Bowlder Canon, from whose rugged jaws gushes the clear and
crystal stream. Once issued from the mountain, the foaming creek
subsides to a gentle current, meandering through a fertile valley.
Some distance up the cafion a flume is put in, to gain a fall, and
thence the water is carried along the cliff in trestled boxes; issuing
thence far up on the ridge, it circles all the valley, supplying irrigation to thirty thousand acres of land, with abundant surplus for
fish-ponds and fountains. Bowlder Valley now yields from a fourth
to a third of all the wheat produced in Colorado.
But if you would enjoy Western Wilds in all their native beauty, take
the stage from Bowlder up to Caribou, at the head of the canion-all
the way through pine-clad hills, romantic glens or wild gorges, which
excite every emotion of Awe and sublimity. To the right of the road,
shut in by walls of water-worn granite and shaded by dense forests of
overhanging pines, are the Bowlder Falls-a mighty work of nature,
which will long remain unmarred by the hand of man, for rocky
flume, granite wall and pine-clad summit have transcendent beauty
without utility. The stream, which rises almost on the summit, issuing from the snow-banks which send out ice-cold rills from May till
October, plunges down a series of offsets, each making a majestic cascad(e, tach cascade differing from all the rest. From the foot of each
little fall a winding way leads along the mossy hill-sides to the next
above; while the whole way is shaded by the immense pines, which
in places lean over and mingle their branches above the foamy rapids.
Here a well-equipped excursion party might spend days of calm enjoyment, shaded by the evergreen forests, lulled by the roar of the
waters, soothing eye and brain by contemplation of nature's wild
beauty.
After a day's slow progress upward, our coach suddenly emerges
into the open mountain meadows about Nederland (location of the
Holland Company's quartz mills), and a few miles beyond darkness
comes upon us at Caribou, a mining town almost on the summit of




COLORADO.


46Z


the mountains. There is a singular air of newness in the whole district.  In town I find the streets not yet cleared of native timber; of
the thousand or more inhabitants most are living in unfinished frames,
and the heavy groves of pine on all the surrounding knolls give the
place the pleasing appearance of a camp-meeting ground.  And here
I put in a few days studying the silver mines.
The main ridge, called by the enthusiastic the " Mountain of Silver," was for a mile or more completely pock-marked with prospect
holes, but no more than a dozen locations were developed sufficiently to
be called mines. It is notable that in all new mining regions one will
find hundreds of claims with shafts down fifty or seventy-five feet, and
work suspended. In many instances it is because the original locators are not able to push the development, but sometimes because
they are afraid to. The vein, they reason, shows well at present;
there are good indications of a true fissure, such indications as will
impress buyers favorably that a big lode is below, but if they sink a
hundred feet, it may not turn out a true fissure after all. So they will
sell on present appearances.  Buyers should look out for such cases,
and, if the shaft is not down at least a hundred feet, be sure anyhow
that it proves the existence of a regular fissure.
Down in the Sherman Mine I found a score of men picking and
blasting out the rich rock, of which the poorest grade yields a hundred and thirty ounces of silver per ton, the richest fourteen hundred
ounces. This estimate is from the mill-runs-the only honest test of
a mine's capacity.  Assays, of course, show more.  The assayer who
does not pay for any thing, but is paid for " sample assay," may not
be entirely disinterested, but the mill-owner is not going to pay a dollar an ounce for a single ounce of silver more than he can get out of
the rock. Most mill men do not claim to get more than eighty-five
per cent. of the silver actually in the rock, hut the owners at Nederland, where this ore is worked, now claim to get over ninety per cent.
This fact also makes the mill run a better test than the assay, for, obviously, investers in mines care more for what they can get out than
what science shows to be there. And herein is seen one of the reasons
why it pays to transport many kinds of ore from Colorado to Swansea, Wales, for there they save all the silver, gold, arsenic and other
minerals.
In the Shermnan and some other mines here is used the new com,
pound known as tri-nitro-glycerine.  The workmen objected forcibly
at first, but the inventor and manufacturer, Professor C. D. Chase, of St.
Louis, maintains that it is safer than any other explosive in use. Its
30




*


466                    WESTERN WILDS.
power is wonderful. During my stay the workmen in the lower drift
drilled one hole four feet deep, and put in a cartridge eighteen inches
long, containing eight inches of the stuff; when " shot" it broke out
25 cubic feet of solid granite.  It is entirely too powerful to fool
with. So, when invited to go down and see it work, I respectfully
declined. It is usually "planted" in a metal cartridge, and exploded
with battery and cap, but in cases where the cartridge can not be inserted the liquid is poured in.  The common method is to bore four
holes in the face of the drift, then fill and explode them all at once,
tearing off a yard square and a foot in depth of the rock.  This explosive has been found cheaper than dualin, dynamite or giant powder,
and now that the workmen are acquainted with it they consider it safe
enough. But it would take high wages to keep me in its vicinity
very long.
Near the Sherman is the Poor Man's Lode, with vein from two to
six feet in thickness, and ore-seam from five inches to two feet. The
rest of the vein is filled with quartz and decomposed granite. The
existence of narrow ore-seams in large veins, the rest of the vein matter often entirely barren, though sometimes containing threads or
pockets of silver ore, is a characteristic of nearly all the mines of Colorado, and a never-failing source of speculation and theorizing.  The
advocates of the sublimation theory of lode-formation rely upon it
very largely to prove their case; and it is the one phenomenon which
advocates of the eruption theory can not explain in harmony with
their views. For, manifestly, if the contents of the vein all gushed
up in a mass from liquid reservoirs below, they could not have thus
arranged themselves in neat layers of ore and vein-stone; while, if
condensed from successive mineral vapors, we should naturally expect
the existing order. The " Poor Man" and " Sherman" preserve their
course quite regularly in the deep workings, as indeed do most of the
lodes here. One great source of lawsuits is found in the fact that the
veins under ground will not fellow the course laid down for them on
the surface in a United States patent.  The patent generally locates
the claim along the mountain side as straight as a yard-stick; but at
a hundred feet or more in depth the course of the vein resembles
rather a crack in ice made by a heavy blow-there are whims, droppers, feeders, cross-courses, dips, spurs, angles, variations and sinuosities.  Now, if you locate your patent on a cross-course, and I afterwards locate mine on the main vein, and we run together a hundred
feet down, the question is whether the older location or the truer one
should hold.  In new mining camps " first blood " generally holds,




COLORADO.


467


regardless of law.  One set of judges have held that the title follows
the vein, when proved that it is the main vein, no matter whether it
agrees with the patent on the surface or not; but another class holds
that this contradicts the old principle of common law-that the
owner on the surface " owns from zenith to nadir," and that if one's
vein runs under another's, the latter holds, regardless of priority.
Evidently that old rule must be abrogated as to mining property, and
the title follow the main vein wherever it goes, if we are ever to have
certainty. In the Shermal and Caribou mines a light can be seen a
hundred yards along the vein in the deepest workings.
The great Caribou mine has been so often described that the subject has become stale, but its history has the elements of romance.
It was discovered December 23, 1869, and located in the names of
W. J. Martin, Samuel Mishler, George Lytle, Hugh McCameron,
John H. Pickle and Henry Mishler. By them it was worked till
September, 1870, paying almost from the start. But the discoverers
were not very well posted, and as a rule the locators make little or
nothing out of a mine. They sold out rather cheap, nobody knows
for how much, and one-half the mine became the property of Abel
D. Breed, Esq., with attorneyship for the other half. Sixty thousand
dollars were spent in development, and erecting house and machinery
for working; but ore enough was taken out meantime to leave a clear
profit of $175,000. This demonstrated its great richness beyond a
doubt, and it was put upon the foreign market. A small corps of
foreign engineers examined and reported upon it, and as a result it
was sold to the mining company Nederland, of Hague, Holland, for
$3,000,000. It is now worked according to scientific principles, under
the superintendency of Mr. Benjamin Rule. Three eight-hour shifts
are employed, and no work done on Sunday. No man is allowed
about the mine in a state of intoxication; one appearance in that
character is cause for a discharge. The printed rules, conspicuously
posted, to which every employ6 subscribes, also forbid all profane,
obscene or abusive language. It is estimated by the best judges that
there are at least twenty-one claims with clearly defined veins, known
to be of some value, on the entire hill. Ore from each of these,
selected at random and mixed, was sent in bulk to Johnson, Matheny
& Co., of Hatton Garden, E. C., London, and yielded a hundred and.
ninety-two ounces of silver per ton. Of course so many veins known,
and more suspected, have stimulated the formation of tunnel companies,
and no less than half a dozen tunnels are started into Caribou Hill,
which is very favorably situated for that work.  The hill has a




.468


WESTERN WILDS.


general course east and west. Towards the north (or rather east of
north) it falls away abruptly to a beautiful circular park. In all
other directions than towards Caribou the inclosing walls of the park
rise in gentle rounded hills, closed with heavy forests of pine. From
the various gulches run clear streams to the center of the valley, forming a creek large enough for milling purposes; and far to the northeast stretch extensive pastures in the vales and timber on the ridges.
In that part is the best locality for a quartz mill which the vicinity
affords, and consequently all the tunnel claims are located on that
side. They lie only a thousand feet apart, as the law allows each one
that space. and if completed will undermine the entire hill in sections
of a thousand feet each, striking the various lodes at a depth of from
five hundred to a thousand feet. The law allows a tunnel company
five hundred feet on any lode they strike, " not located on the surface
at the date the tunnel site was located." But if the owner of any
mine opened above proposes to dispute title, the burden of proof is on
him to trace connection, which it will obviously take him some time
to do, and for this reason and the greater convenience of shipping ore
through that channel, the interests generally unite.
From Caribou I took the mountain road across to Central Citysite of the far-famed Gregory Gulch Diggings, and thence to Idaho
City, and up to Georgetown. The way was over mountain meadows,
mingling the rich green with bright-hued flowers; through dark pine
forests and down lonely gulches, where the indefatigable prospectors
had dotted all the slopes with holes in search of" indications."  Sometimes the route lay over levels where one could scarcely believe himself on a mountain, though we were from eight to nine thousand feet
above the sea; and sometimes in depressions we saw heavy crops of
rye and potatoes, ripening in late August, a mile and a half above the
Missouri Valley. Near Central City hundreds of acres of bare gray
rocks show where the surface soil has been " piped off" to get at the
gold dust; and in a few places gangs of Chinese are still at work on
the poorest diggings, long since abandoned by whites. But placer
mining in this vicinity has long yielded to quartz mining, and the few
Chinese at the time of my visit were even worse regarded than in
California. A fire, a few weeks before, had laid a large section of the
city in ruins; and, as it originated among the Mongolians, they were
for a long time forbidden to come into the upper part of town. But
the poor, pathetically patient race, bided its time and held its -own.
My summer's work was done, and while September heats still lin..
gered on the plains, we left the cool air of Georgetown for the journey




COLORADO


469


to Salt Lake City.  From   Denver to Cheyenne the mixed train
jogged along all one bright autumn day: to our left the blue
mountains, the broad plains to our right; sometimes over flats
almost as level as the sea, sometimes through gently rolling valleys, and more rarely along the course of creeks long since dried
up. On the level the plains present that uniform gray-brown appearance which is natural to them at this season; but on some of
the slopes and in all the little valleys were -narrow strips of rich
green, and a soil looking as if it might be made productive. As
we progressed broad lakes continually appeared, shone for a few
moments or for hours, then passed out of sight; sometimes to the
eastward but oftener straight ahead, the hills beyond beautifully reflected from their mirror like surfaces. But as the train bore down
towards them they shifted again and again; sometimes moving off
upon the eastern plain, sometimes keeping the same distance ahead,
and yet again rising slowly into the air till lost in the clouds. But
of real honest water, there was not a drop, for where there is
enough of that to make humid the atmosphere the mirage is rarely
seen.  These were the "lying waters" of which Spanish explorers
tell, and which, before they were so well known, lured many a voyageur from his course and to his death. As the country is settled it
is remarked that this mirage is more and more rare; but the best
time and place to see it is on the dry plains of California, of a hot
afternoon in August.
An hour we stopped at Greeley, the noted "Yankee Settlement,"
now the center of a rich and well cultivated tract. The shade trees
early planted by the colonists already relieve the monotony of the plains;
the dark mountains furnish a splendid background, and in ten years
more this town will rival in rural beauty the nicest New England
village. Soon after we passed the Wyoming line; but a year after I
returned, for further travels in Colorado. The summary in the next
chapter is from notes and careful study during both visits.




CHAPTER XXX.


THE CENTENNIAL STATE.
DON FRANCISCO VASQUEZ CORONADO, (the chronicle does not give
his other name,) was the first Pike's Peaker. In 1541 he set out from
the City of Mexico to find and conquer the "Seven Cities of Cibola,"
where, according to the reports of reliable gentlemen and the common
belief of all New Spain, gold was so plentiful that the Cibolans used
it for the manufacture of common utensils, while their houses were
lighted with precious stones, and silver was not accounted of.  His
command consisted of some seven hundred cavaliers and gentlemen
of the New Spain nobility, who gladly sold all they had to outfit, assuring the reporters of Mexico City that "neither themselves nor
their families would ever need more gold than they should bring back
from the Seven Cities." They marched and fought, and fought and
marched: up the Colorado to the mouth of the Gila, up the Gila to
the Casas Grandes and northward across Arizona to the Rio San Juan.
They penetrated what is now Colorado, then turned south-west to
where Santa Fe now stands, and still their Indian guides assured them
the golden Cibola of their hopes was a little further on. After a brief
rest, having destroyed a few Pueblo towns and temples, and burnt
their idols for the truth's sake, they crossed the mountains and
marched down nearly to the center of the present Indian Territory,
and still found no Cibola, no gold, and no rich kingdom.  Then the
inevitable quarrel arose, the expedition broke up, and the cavaliers returned to Mexico, seven years older, considerably poorer, and somewhat wiser than they left it. But they added to Spanish territory, by
the apostolical right of discovery, an area twelve times the size of
Ohio; the same since added to our free Republic by the slaveholder's
right of conquest, and payment of ten million dollars.  A fascinating account of Coronado's expedition was written by a Spanish gentleman in the party, a Mr. Castenada, who was born three
centuries too soon.  He should have lived in our day and
been a Washington correspondent; he had the requisite fancy and
power of romantic embellishment, and was pious to a fault.  He
would have consented to the death of all the heathen in the new ter(470)




THE CENTENNIAL STATE.


47i


ritory, if they had stoodtin the way of consecrating the gold to Catholic uses.
Many other expeditions did the Spaniards make, but few of them
came north of the Arkansas.  Finally, some two hundred years ago,
Northern New Mexico was settled, and thereafter by degrees the
Spanish outposts extended up to the Raton Mountains and into the
rich parks and valleys where head the affluents of the Rio Grande.
So those who speak of Colorado as so new a country, would do well to
remember that a part of it is older than Ohio.  Two hundred years
passed away and under the auspices of President Jefferson, Colonel
Zebulon Pike explored "that part of Louisiana which lieth along the
foot of the Sierra Madre" (Rocky Mountains), and in the summer of
1806, gazed with wonder on the snow-capped summit of Pike's Peak.
This le set, with some hesitation, at 17,500 feet high,  Later and
more accurate explorers have reduced his estimate some 3,000 feet.
Proceeding southward he was captured and imprisoned by the suspicious Captain-General of New Mexico; and to this day many are
the legends among the Mexicans about the "fair-haired Alnericano,"
and the gallantry (in its double sense) of his men,
As early as 1820, Colorado was traversed in all directions by white
hunters and trappers, and in 1840 the eastern section contained several
trading posts, among which Fort Lancaster, on the Platte, and Bent's
Fort, on the Arkansas, were most prominent. In 1842, twelve Americans took unto themselves Mexican wives, and employed their dark
relations in erecting a fort, which was the foundation of the present
American city of Pueblo; and about the same time twenty families of
whites and half-breeds made a settlement on or near the Fontaine Que
Bouille. Thus stood the population for many years. From midsummer till Christmas there was hunting, trapping and fighting Indians;
then the nomadic inhabitants-they could not by any stretch of language be called settlers-gathered to the trading-posts and spent the
proceeds of their season's work.  At each post was a medley of
traders, trappers and hunters, white, Mexican and Indian; their
amusements, racing, gambling, dancing and drinking, varied by fiequent bloody fights, whereof the accounts are sometimes amusing,
oftener disgusting.   These contests were nearly always over disputed property-chiefly horses or women, both of which were very
valuable-helped in no small degree by the villainous whisky dispensed by the American Fur Company. Almost every prominent
point in Eastern Colorado received its name from some tragic occurrence.  Instance the following: Fifteen Mexicans from Taos quar



472


WESTERN WILDS.


reled with about an equal number of Americans at Fort Lancaster,
about a trade of horses and furs. The Americans ambushed them and
stampeded all their stock. The Mexicans took arms and advanced on
their foes; then, the commandantes on each side being leaders and
spokesmen, ensued the following:
Mexican-" Que quiere caballero!"  (What do you want, sir?)
American —" Yo tengo lo caballardo-porque dicirme esta " (I have
your horses-why do you ask?)
" Caraho, Americano!" shouted the Mexican, bringing his gun to
his shoulder; but the American was too quick with his pistol and laid
the other prostrate, the ball passing through him just below the heart.
The result was "the survival of the fittest," and the "superior race "
retired with their booty.  An appeal to the trading company at
the fort brought an international council, which resulted in an
amicable settlement.  The wounded man recovered in three months,
and the place was thenceforth known as "Greaser's Gulch."
Herring and Beer were mountaineers, companions and friends, who
paid court to the same seniorita.  Herring married her, and Beer
grossly insulted him, with intent to bring on a quarrel and kill him.
A duel was agreed on, and Beer, who was a crack shot, confidently
expected to kill Herring, who was considered a poor "off-hand marksman."   They met, attended by their friends, who arranged that the
shooting was to be at any time the principals chose in the count between the word fire and three.  At the word fire, the ball of Beer's
rifle buried in a cottonwood just over Herring's head; at the word
three, Herring's ball pierced the heart of Beer, who was buried in the
gulch where he fell. When I visited it long afterward the gulch was
still known as "Beer's Follv."
Sadder, more bloody and more romantic was the episode of Vaughn
and La BontS, life long companions and friends, but destined to exemplify the deadly bitterness of "love to hatred' turned."  Together
they had traversed every trail on the plains and trapped on every
stream in the mountains; at the old Arkansas crpssing they had fought
side by side against the murderous Kioways; they had taken beaver
together on Clear Creek, and gnawed the same bone in the extremity
of hunger when overtaken too early by the winter storms. Common
danger and suffering creates strange friendships. Perhaps it is not the
intelligent social comity which unites men of some cultivation; perhaps it is more like an exaggeration of that kinship which makes even
dumb animals cling to each other, and in a mysterious way mourn
another's death.  Be that as it may, a little cloud. no bigger than a




I


THE CENTENNIAL STATE.                   473
man's hand or a woman's face, rose on the horizon of their friendship.
Chance expressions were repeated with additions; petulant remarks,
which the speaker was sorry for ere they died upon the air, grew from
lip to lip and reached the other's ears as vile slanders; for "mutual
friends" are as busy and blundering in the wilds as in the city.
Vaughn, the elder, was a grizzled mountaineer, with the dry humor.
of a "Tennessee Yankee"; his sarcasm was cutting, and he affected
an indifference to woman's charms.  La Bonte, on the contrary, had
all the impetuosity of the Frenchman, which had survived through
all the generations since his forefathers settled in Canada.  The life
of a voyageur and trapper had only heightened his mercurial temperament; he was a backwoods dandy, and adorned his person with the
handiwork of squaws. One fine morning in 1843, they rode into the
Pueblo fort fast friends, as they persuaded themselves, having settled
their little differences; that night they parted rivals, and consequently
enemies.  This transformation was affected by the smiles of a brown
mnestiza, who had previously pledged her "punic faith" to Vaughn,
but to-day, seeing La Bonte for the first time, was charmed by his
youthful gallantry and French display. To the older hunter this was
blackest treachery on the part of his friend; to the younger it was
fair emulation. A week after, they.met at a trappers' rendezvous.
Hot words ensued and knives were drawn; but there was no liquor on
the ground so early in the season, and friends separated them without
bloodshed. Then spoke the Tennesseean:
"Compadre, seein' what you have been, I don't want none o' your
blood on my weepins. Go you one way, I'll go another.  When this
season's over, let the best man win her."
"I'm white on this thing," replied La Bonte; "my hunt this year is
up the Cache La Poudre."
"Then," was the answer, "I'll go the Sangre de Christo run with
these men. No tricks now-you don't turn back to Pueblo?"
It was settled; but unfortunately for Vaughn's resolution his party
lingered, and he was deputed to go to Pueblo for further supplies.
There he learned that La Bonte had returned, and, after a brief courtship of two days, taken the mestiza-his own, as Vaughn considered
her-to one of the northern posts.  In all the solitary hours of that
season's hunt he brooded over, his wrong, till hatred possessed his
soul. Meanwhile, as if driven by fate, La BontB crossed the mountains, having found the season bad on the Cache La Poudre, and
turned southward into the very region he had promised his rival to
avoid.  One day, as Vaughn rested his horse in a pifion thicket, he




474


WESTERN WILDS.


was suddenly roused by an intruder, and looking up, saw his enemy,
the very man who had robbed him, coming up the gulch. "Off! " he
shouted, bounding on his horse.
"Sacre!" replied the Canadian, construing this as a menace, and
setting his horse at a run. His rifle was already at his shoulder; the
other, in his haste, had dropped his gun, but drew a pistol from his


-/-       /
-:: \I


" THE ANIMALS DASHED MADLY BREAST TO BREAST; THE WEAPONS CRACKED SIMULTANEOUSLY."
belt.  The spurred animals dashed madly breast to breast; the
weapons cracked simultaneously, and both men fell heavily to the
ground.
When Vaughn came to himself, he saw his late enemy and former




I


THE CENTENNIAL STATE.                    475
friend lying dead near him. In his own breast was a gaping wound,
from which his life had nearly ebbed away; and the little stream into
which he had rolled in his delirious thirst, was vermilion with his
blood. When picked up by his friends he made his first and last allusion to the trouble: "A  d-d good man killed for a d-d bad
woman-better stuck to my old idees."
Varied only by such incidents as these, the first half of the century
rolled away with little of historic interest. But the expeditions of
Fremont, the Mexican war, and acquisition of new territory, the gold
hunters' invasion of California, the opening of Kansas to settlement,
and the Mormon war of 1857, caused the whole region to be thoroughly
explored, with a view of finding some shorter and better route to the
Pacific. All who came this way were eager for gold. If gold there
was, it was only an accident who should find it. Traditions of its
presence had been. numerous for a hundred years. Many an explorer,
white or Mexican, had returned with specimens which good judges
pronounced gold, but somehow the clue was always lost. At last, in
1858, came the right men. John H. Gregory, Green Russell, and
other Georgians, old miners and familiar with the precious metals,
found what was unmistakably gold; but it was not till the 6th of May,
1859, that Gregory struck the gold diggings on North Clear Creek,
which soon became world renowned as the Gregory Lode, and settled
affirmatively the question as to whether this was a rich mineral region.
But the country could not wait for verification; nothing was needed
so.badly in 1858 as a new excitement. The Kansas troubles had been
happily settled, the Mormon war was over, and newspaperdom was
dying of ennui. So, soon after a few ounces of gold dust reached
Leavenworth, the whole country was stirred, and for months "Pike's
Peak" glared at us in display type from the head of a thousand news
columns. Along with the prospector went the able-bodied correspondent, and beat the old Spanish chroniclers on their own soil. Wonder
was piled on wonder, and a patient public accepted all as truth; but at
last, extravagance run mad effedted its own cure.  Here is a specimen from an Iowa paper:
" We learn from a gentleman just returned from the Peak that the gold lies in bands
or strata down the slope. The custom of the best miners is to construct a heavy wooden
float with iron ribs, similar to a stone boat; this is taken to the top of the Peak, where
several men get in and guide it down over the gold strata. The gold curls up on the
boat like shavings, and is gathered in as they progress. This is the usual method of
collecting it."
Within one year this region received seventy-five thousand Americans. The romance and tragedy of this invasion have often been




476


WESTERN WILDS.


portrayed. I am here chiefly concerned with the genesis and evolution of civil government. There was no constitutional authority in
the country, and neither judge nor officer within five hundred miles.
The invaders were remitted to the primal law of nature, with, perhaps, the inherent rights of American citizenship. Every gulch was
filling with red-hot treasure hunters; every bar was pock-marked with
prospect holes;" timber, water-rights, and town-lots were soon to be
valuable, and government was an imperative necessity. Here was a
fine field for theorists to test their views as to the origin of civil law.
Poet and political romancer have described in captivating lines, the
descent of civil government as a heaven-born genius, full-grown and
perfect from the mind of Deity. But to the historian of events is left
a far less pleasing task. He can not but see that government is the
most awkward and imperfect of all human inventions. Here, as elsewhere, it was a creature of slow, irregular growth, evolved by reason
and experience from the hopes and fears of men, originating in the
instinct of self-preservation, and developed by necessity and concession.
Four different governments sprang up with concurrent jurisdiction.
The favorite theory of Senator Douglas, that local self-government
was inherent in American citizenship every-where in our territory,
seems to have been adopted by a majority of the first comers; and
they straightway proceeded to organize the " Territory of Jefferson."
On the 6th of November, 1858, an election was held at Denver, and
H. J. Graham chosen without opposition as delegate to Congress. He
went to Washington, and had the pleasure of paying his own expenses
there all winter; for "Jefferson" was not admitted. Nevertheless,
delegates from thirteen precincts assembled the next April, took the'
preliminary steps, and called an organizing convention to meet in
August, 1859. One hundred and sixty-seven delegates came together,
tried to construct a State, and failed; but a little later "Jefferson"
was regularly organized. An elected legislature assembled in November, listened to an admirable inaugural from Governor R. W. Steele,
organized nine counties, granted charters for the new towns, and
passed a very good criminal code and body of mining laws. Meanwhile, Kansas had organized this country into Arapahoe County, and
to make a sure thing of it, a full set of county officers were elected,
who exercised a sort of hop-skip-and-jump jurisdiction, bobbing
around in the mountains, foot-hills, or in Denver, wherever they
could get a foothold. But these might be called governments by ambition, rather than by necessity; the latter kind were meanwhile being
organized in the mountains and ranches.




THE CENTENNIAL STATE.                    477
The first comers there were generally in little squads, old friends
and neighbors, and each party amicably divided all the gulch between
them. But the next year -came sixty thousand more, who wanted a
show; and it is highly creditable to the pioneers that rules were agreed
upon with so little trouble. The example was set in Gregory Gulch
(Central City). A mass meeting of miners was held June 8, 1859,
and a committee appointed to draft a code of laws. This committee
laid out boundaries for the district, and their civil code, after some
discussion and amendment, was unanimously adopted in mass meeting,
July 16, 1859. The example was rapidly followed in other districts,
and the whole Territory was soon divided between a score of local
sovereignties.  But these were only laws as to property; there was so
little crime the first year that none others were needed. The Miners'
Courts, as they were called, were presided over by justices of the
peace, chosen by ballot; these, as a matter of form, usually took out a
commission, sometimes from the " Territory of Jefferson," sometimes
from Arapahoe County, and often from both.
But now money began to be plenty, and criminals invaded the
country. The civil courts promptly assumed criminal jurisdiction, and
the year 1860 opened with four governments in full blast. Thq
miners' courts, people's courts, and "provisional government" (a
new name for "Jefferson,") divided jurisdiction in the mountains;
while Kansas and the provisional government ran concurrent in
Denver and the valley.  Such as felt friendly to either jurisdiction
patronized it with their business. Appeals were taken from one to
the other, papers certified up or down and over, and recognized,
criminals delivered and judgments accepted from   one court by
another, with a happy informality -which it -is pleasant to read of.
And here we are confronted by an awkward fact: there was undoubtedly much less crime in the two years this arrangement lasted than in
the two which followed the territorial organization and regular government. The miners and ranchers were, as a rule, sober and industriouis, and few atrocious cases were brought before the people's courts.
In Denver three homicides and two duels had occurred down to April,
1860; but soon after came an invasion of thieves and ruffians, and the
conflict there was terrible for a time.
If any of that class ventured into the mountains, the miners made
short work of them. The miners' laws were usually drafted by committees and adopted in full mass meeting, the government being a pure
democracy.   Each law   began with " Resolved," though it was
sometimes changed, as a mnatter of form, to "Be it enacted."  Lawyers




478


WESTERN WILDS.


were forbidden to practice in many districts. One law I copy from
the records of Union Mining District:
" Resolved, That no lawyer be permitted to practice law in this district, under penalty
of not more than fifty nor less than twenty lashes, and be forever banished from this
district."
Another states that, "whereas Bill Payne, commonly known as Cockeye Payne," has committed certain outrages, among which drawing
a revolver in court, and threatening the judge, are made prominent;
therefore,
" Resolved, That a committee of ten good men be sent to bring in the said Bill or Cockeye Payne, and he be required to show cause why he should not immediately be hung."
It appears that he was able to show cause, and got off with banishment.
All these little governments came to an end on the passage of a
Civil and Criminal Code by the first Territorial Legislature, in the
winter of 1861-'62; but this code legalized all acts of previous governments, "not plainly contrary to justice or the common law."  It was
enacted that all the district recorders' books should be filed in the
office of the county recorder, and be presumptive proof, the burden
of proving the contrary to rest on the challenger; and that all decisions of former courts were to be valid " when both parties made appearance or had notice according to such rules as were then in force,
whether by law or accepted custom." The change from local to territorial law appears to have been made without a ripple of disturbance,
and all disputed claims of any prominence have risen under the present laws. Thus is seen in miniature the course of civil aggregation:
first, the individual man yields to the local organization, then the local
is slowly merged in the general. Government is seen to be, not a positive good, but only a choice of the lesser evil. Man yields a portion
of his natural rights in order to preserve the rest; he supports the
claims of others because he must ask support from them. Thus, too,
is manifested the inherent capacity of the Anglo-Saxon for civil organization; and those who maintain that government necessarily had its
origin in revelation, might profitably study the many proofs to the
contrary in the settlement of the Far West.
Colorado became a Territory in 1861, remained such fifteen years,
and after four desperate efforts, at last succeeded in becoming a State,
just in time to aid in the election of a centennial president. Denver,
political and financial capital of the new State, is also the starting
point for most places of interest. Thence by way of the Narrowguage, fifty miles westward, and all the way up-hill, lands us in the




THE CENTENNIAL STATE.


479


mining region, where we will delay for a more specific description, the
reader to look on while the writer climbs and talks.
The lowlander, whom business or a love of novelty and wild
scenery leads to climb one of the mountains around Georgetown, finds
material for continual astonishment in the changes which unfold along
his upward way. The white spots seen from below, enlarge to gray
faces on the rocky cliffs, often hundreds of feet perpendicular; the
darker shades, which seem from the valley mere breaks on the view,
open to immense gorges, down which pour torrents of almost ice-cold
water from the snow-Ted lakes on the summit, and the green plats
which pleased the eye as distant masses of shrubbery or thickets of
sage-brush, swell on near approach to magnificent forests of mountain
pine. The thin dyke of yellow-gray rock, which seems to cap the
summit with rectangular blocks, apparently smooth enough to have
been set and polished by human hands, swells out slowly as he climbs,
till at last it towers hundreds of feet above the general summit level,
a solid battlement of weather-beaten granite or trap rock, sometimes
in monstrous cubes, but oftener in broken and serrated pinnacles like
saw-teeth, fully justifying the Spanish appellation of Sierra (a saw).
From the streets of Georgetown the gulches which divide the spurs
into separate mining districts are barely visible; the face of the
mountain between the more abrupt cliffs is tolerably smooth, and except the slope towards the valley it seems that one might drive a
wheeled carriage along its side, or that a stone once started would
roll into the city. Once on that slope, however, and the marks are
found to be gulches often a hundred feet in depth; and instead of the
face of one mountain we appear to have a hundred narrow "hogbacks," in the sides of which are openings into the rock and tunnel
workings invisible from below.
Our party of seven sets out early, for our first ascent of Griffith
Mountain will occupy half a day, and the first stage is up the face of
a bare rock, eight hundred feet high, and barely broken enough to
afford a foot-path; thence by a more gentle trail along the foot of a
granite cliff, which rises three hundred feet almost perpendicularly.
And yet every yard on its front has been tried with the pick or
sounded with the hammer, to see if it contained mineral; for in just
such places have been found some of the richest mines of the district.
A peculiar stain on the rock attracted attention. Men were let down
from above to " prospect," a crevice was found with "blossom" rock,
and often a platform anchored to the cliff till a more permanent footing could be blasted out. The celebrated Stevens' Mine was reached




480


WESTERN WILDS.


by a rope ladder for months
after being opened for work,
and even now the workmen
cling to a guide rope as they
go up the trail, and the ore
is sent down by a tramway.
Yet its richness pays for the
trouble.
A few hundred feet along
this rock-hewn path bring
us-to the half-way gulch and
a beautiful, spring. Down
this rock flume runs one of
those brawling brooks which
are the delight of poets and
artists; and yet the, mouth
of the gulch, only half a
mile below, is but a dry bed.
Of all the streams that rise
far up in the Rocky Mountains, not one in ten reaches
any valley or joins another
stream; and all the streams
of all this slope combined
do not furnish the Platte
water enough to last it a
hundred miles from the
mountains.  Here we rest
and refresh, tighten straps,
and then climb out of the
gulch and enter on a series
of more gentle slopes, alternating pine groves and grass
plats. This way and that,
in zigzag paths, we toil upward, often leaning on our
staves and resting every
hundred yards or so, for at
this point our breath begins
to come short, and if any
way delicate, we feel that


$4 T1IIS WAY AND THAT, IN ZIGZAGS, WE TOIL UPWARD."




THE CENTENNIAL STATE.


481


fluttering of the heart and beating in the temples which result from
an attenuated atmosphere. Here is the original home of the mountain sheep. On these grassy knolls they kept fat from August till
January, and when Georgetown was first settled they were slaughtered
here by hundreds. This mountain bunch-grass and the finer grass on
the higher slopes furnished them abundant feed till covered by the
deep snows of January and February, as the snows are light here
before that time. When the snow melted in April and May, all the
sweetness left the grass, and the big-horn "lived on his fat" till June
or July again. Black-tailed deer, too, were plenty, and occasionally
a grizzly bear made the solitudes lively; now these animals are rarely
seen this side of the summit, though sheep horns can be picked up
frequently, and adorn the front of many a miner's cabin.
We toil slowly up over these knolls for an hour, at each turn the
summit seeming just before us. The grassy region passed, we enter on
the more rocky belt near the summit, and now mines are abundant
and miners' cabins appear on every hand, sometimes built on a narrow
flat, worked on the face of the slope, and again anchored with iron
supports upon some projecting rock. At intervals we encounter pack
trains coming down with ore, the little Mexican burros (donkeys)
carrying immense rawhide panniers filled with the minerals, and near
the summit encounter a party, consisting of one gentleman and three
ladies, cautiously descending from the Highland Park. We see at a
glance that they are Eastern people, as the resident ladies generally
ride burros, sitting astride a sort of modified pack-saddle, but these
have ponies and the Eastern side-saddle. The trail looks terrible, but
horsemen sometimes get down this way, by walking in the worst
places,
It is three hours since we left the valley, and we stand at last on
the edge of the tolerably level summit, but across a sort of meadow is
the foot of the last rocky ridge, which still towers from five to fifteen
hundred feet above us. But this serrated battlement is not continuous on these sub-ranges, which are mere spurs of the Rocky Mountains; it stands out rather in detached peaks, leaving between them
large sections of the summit level, over which a vehicle might be
driven without difficulty. Every miner's cabin is the house of a
friend, and in the nearest we find some hot coffee to moisten our cold
lunch; then climb to the highest point, and with a good field-glass
proceed to take views over a circuit of a hundred miles. Gray's and
Torrey's peaks glisten through the clear air, seeming no morn
than two or, three miles away. To the north and south of them ex31




482


WESTERN WILDS.


tends the main dividing range of the Rocky Mountains, now spotted
dull gray and dazzling white by alternations of bare rock and gulches
filled with snow. Bat the day, though beautiful and mild, is too hazy
for us to see the Holy Cross. This is formed by two enormous rifts
in the mouxtain side near the summit; crossing each other at right
angles, and never bare of snow. The two white lines form an exact
Greek cross, which glitters in the sunlight of a bright day, being
thrown into bold relief by the dark gray face of the mountain.
From our standpoint we look down a thousand feet upon summits,
which, from Georgetown, seem so high as almost to be lost in the
clouds. But the greatest sight is to the eastward. For a hundred
miles out from the base of the mountains the plains seem to rise, and
the blue line which marks the visible horizon appears just on a level
with our eyes. But the plains there are at least seven thousand feet
lower than our location. This phenomenon I have often observed
from commanding positions in the mountains, and can understand the
statement of aeronauts, that as they rise the region directly under them
seems to sink slowly into a basin, while the surrounding country remains on a level with them.
The area we can thus survey with one quick glance now contains
at least fifteen thousand miners and twice as many citizens and agriculturists.  Sixteen years ago the site of central Georgetown was an
immense beaver dam, the largest in this part of the Rocky Mountains, and known to trappers and Indians all over the country.  Even
now, on some of the lowest lots in town, the effects of beaver work
can be seen; and the rich, mucky soil on the common shows that it
was the bed of their pond for long series of years. The first prospectors who pitched their tent on Clear Creek amused themselves on
many a moonlight evening by watching the beavers play.  Then the
mountain sheep crowded these glades in hundreds, and for months the
early settlers had no other meat. The black-tailed deer came in about
the season when mutton was scarce. The brown bear, and more
rarely the grizzly, lived in the timber below us. Even now traces of
these animals are met with frequently among the hills. Then, instead
of the miner's cabin, or the mouth of shaft or tunnel, one might have
seen the unscarred face of nature; and in place of pack-trains laden
with ore, or miners toiling up the steep trails, a band of Utes moving
through the mountain passes, and sallying out upon the plains to attack their hereditary enemies, the Sioux and Arapahoes. Surely there
was as much beauty in these scenes then as now. And yet how seldom the white men who saw this country, cultivated and intelligent as




THE CENTERNNIAL STATE.


483


some of them were, speak of its sublime scenery. Their narratives are
full, however, of allusions to scenes of blood and danger, to frowning
precipices, where one misstep was destruction, and to lonely gorges
where ambushed savages might let fly upon the unwary traveler a
shower of arrows. Only security and a touch of civilization enable
us to appreciate wild beauty and grandeur. Small is the pleasure one
can take in the brawling brook, when, stooping to taste its ice-cold
waters, he is liable to get an arrow in his back; in the wondrous
canon walls, where every turn may reveal an enemy; in the sweep of
the bald eagle, where the next occupation of that eagle may be in
picking the meat from his bones, or in the antics of the "noble red
man " when that (supposed) nobility is his only security for life.
The richest mineral region is on the mountains west and south-west
of Georgetown.  First is the Silver Plume group.  There the Pay
Rock has an eighteen-inch vein of ore, zinc blende, very rich in silver.
Down hill therefrom is the celebrated group including the Dives, Dunkirk and Pelican. These locations are stuck in so thick that the patents overlap each other in all directions, and a completed map of all
the claims looks like a picture of a pile of boards thrown at random on
the ground,;and half covering each other. Out of a little plat, perhaps half a mile long and a quarter wide, has come $10,000,000 worth
of ore. The Dives alone shipped $640,000 worth in forty days; and,
pending certain legal proceedings, $90,000 worth was shipped between
midnight Saturday and midnight Sunday. [An attachment can not be
levied in Colorado on Sunday.]  Besides paying enormous dividends,
several of these mines keep two or three good lawyers in pay, and
support expensive lawsuits. I am afraid to say how much actual cash
has been paid out on the Dives-Pelican suit.  The lowest guess here
is $100,000, but it is probable a great deal has changed hands very
quietly, and without knowledge of the public.
Two hundred feet below is the Baxter, famous for its wire silver, of
which I have seen specimens that looked like a "witch-ball," or mass
of tangled hair turned to pure silver.  Of course there is not much
of that sort of stuff, and where it appears on the face of rich rock
it looks as if it had stewed out of the stone and curled from intense
heat. Most of it is found in bunches lining the inside of little pockets in the stone, and projecting from a streaked rock we used to call
in Utah "polygamy lime rock."  To discover a mine in that neigborhood was nothing; the great trouble was to sink a shaft down to
where the ore was concentrated, and then put up the machinery necessary to work it. Some of these mines originally sold for a trifle, com



484


WESTERN WILDS.


paratively; then the buyers had to spend $40,000 in development,
since when they have paid for themselves a dozen times over. The
Pelican Mine extends directly across Cherokee Gulch and on to
Sherman Mountain. A little beyond are the Maine, Coldstream,
Phoenix, Scotia and Captain Wells, merely different claims along the
same vein, all very rich, and supposed to be a continuation of the
same ore-channel as the Pelican-Dives. Half a mile or more along
the steep face of Sherman Mountain, barely passable by a foot trail,
brings us to Brown Gulch, and beyond it Brown Mountain. Directly
across the gulch are several valuable mines.  Near the top are the
Hercules and Seven-thirty. After innumerable lawsuits and fights,
the killing of one man and wounding of two others, the claimants of
these two locations compromised interests, and sold both for $180,000.
Now, under the name of East Row, it is paying handsomely.  Down
the hill-side, and also crossing the gulch, is the Brown Mine, which
has paid for itself half a dozen times over.  Still lower-in fact, only
three or four hundred feet above Clear Creek-is the celebrated Terrible, probably the best managed mine in the district, though far from
being the richest.  It was bought of the locators by a company in
Cornwall, England, for $500,000, and yields $150,000 annually, varying but little from one year to another.
Successful mining in Colorado is of necessity deep mining.  Rare,
indeed, are the cases in which good pay rock is reached at less than a
hundred feet, and in many mines the best is not reached under four or
five hundred feet. As a rule, the larger the vein is the farther it is down
to where all the ore in it is concentrated into one rich seam; for the
force which made the seam of ore seems to have been weakened or dissipated as it drew near the surface, and a seam three feet thick at a
depth of three hundred feet will often be scattered in twenty little irregular strings toward the surface. The Dives is by no means a
large lode, but they sunk on it two hundred feet before they found
the ore concentrated in one seam. The ore body may aptly be compared to a tree, which, as it rises, continually divides and subdivides,
running out at last to twigs; so the ore-seam scatters until, at the surface, the prospector finds a hundred little lines or stems of mineral
scattered over a wide space.  Hence it is that silver mining here requires both nerve and patience, for it takes time to get down to the
ore in this hard rock, where " three shifts" make but six or seven feet
a week.
The curiosities of mining are almost endless.  Here and there on
the edge of rich ore-seams little accretions of almost pure silver have




THE CENTENNIAL STATE.


485


run together, like "leaf lard," as it were, and, according to its purity,
or the chemicals mixed in it, such "nibs" are known as chloride, horn
silver, ruby silver, azurite or tetrahledrite. A change of one-tenth of
one per cent. in the chemical will sometimes change entirely the color
and texture of the ore. " Black-jack," or zinc blende, is a very troublesome combination. Chunks of it are found, which assay five hundred ounces of silver per ton, but its reduction is very difficult and
expensive. Azurite is a combination of silver with blue carbonates of
copper, and yields all the way from three hundred to a thousand
ounces of silver per ton  Every year lower grade ores can be profitably worked, with the improvement in methods and cheapening of
transportation.  When this district was opened, in 1864, ore must
yield a hundred ounces per ton to be worth working; now thirtyounce ore can be profitably treated. The laws as to title in silver
mines are now pretty well settled; but no law that Congress or
Territorial Legislature could pass has prevented men who stayed on
the ground from getting title to thousands of "feet" in mines. The
laws also say something about the preemptor being of voting age; but
by " unwritten law" any able-bodied lad of sixteen and upward, who
can do the Tequired work, can preempt sufficiently to sell out to an
adult, who can perfect the title. A shrewd lawyer, of course, might
pick flaws in the inchoate title; but it would be unhealthy to do so if
the boy had any friends. A territorial law, passed in 1874, gives title
in width also; allowing seventy-five feet on each side of a claim for
working purposes. But each county is allowed to limit this by popular vote, and most counties do. Thus it will be seen that original location, preemption and sale, and each successive transfer, being recorded in the old district records, now legalized as part of the county
records, these titles are just as susceptible of proof as those of a
farm.
Over the sub-range which bounds Georgetown en the north-west,
through a lofty region of forests, parks and mountain meads, and over
another more gentle grange, brings us to North Clear Creek Cafion,
where gold was first discovered. The gold placers have long since
yielded in prominence to silver lodes. On the old Gregory claim is
now part of Central City, the historic town of Colorado.  There
sprung up a rattling "city" of logs and rough-sawed plank during
the week that Horace Greeley was inspecting the mines in 1859; and
there, for a time, was the territorial capital, until the sudden and
amazing growth of Denver overshadowed all the mountain towns, and
absorbed all the Federal fat things. Mining in the old Gregory dis



486


WESTERN WILDS.


trict has long since passed out of the era of romantic uncertainty and
excitement to that of regular work and legitimate investment. Another day's journey to the northward, over the eastern slope of the
mountains, and through a region rich with scenic interest, brings us
to Caribou, Nederland, and all that rich region at the head of Bowlder Creek. Caribou, ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, on
a gentle slope, and in the midst of a dense pine forest, was the most
delightful of new mining towns when I visited it in. August, 1874.
Of course that part of Colorado which drains eastward is much the
best known and developed, but beyond the main range are many new
and promising mining camps, chief among them the San Juan District, which seems to lie across the very center of the great upheaval
that, perhaps, made the mines. In every district are ten times as many
locations as will ever be developed, and ten thousand hopes that will
never be realized; for, despite his plain surroundings, the miner is the
most romantic and imaginative of men.  But his is a singularly unromantic work. It implies cold, dirt and wet, possibility of sudden
death, probability of severe injury, soon or late, and certainty of sore
trial and frequent disappointments.  The history of a silver mine includes these stages: prospecting, locating, opening, developing and
working-and at every step in development the chances of final failure
are many.  Thus it has been well and truly said that mining is a lottery, but it should still be remembered that this applies only to finding
and developing mines.  Once it has depth sufficient to prove it, and
has opened into a regular vein, a mine is as certain as any property in
the world.  But on the surface, where the prospector makes his location according to the " indications," there is no science that enables
him to judge what it will prove on depth. That he must learn by
digging, and many are the alternations of hope and fear as he goes
down. First a little " pocket " of rich sulphurets raises his hopes to
fever heat, then comes a " cap " of barren rock, and down they go to
zero; next, perhaps, he finds the vein widening, with here and there a
" nib " of chloride, azurite or ruby silver, and straightway his spirits
mount as on eagle's wings; again he encounters a "pinch" or " cap,"
and hope almost dies out ere he gets through it. Sometimes he follows a " pinching vein," scarcely thicker than a knife-blade, for many
a week, at an expense of fifteen dollars a foot, hoping that it will lead
him to the main vein. At last, at the depth of one hundred feet or
more, his varying crevice either opens into the main vein and rewards
him a thousand fold for all his toil, or, as it does in nine cases out of
ten, it ends in barren rock, beyond which there is no thoroughfare,




THE CENTENNIAL STATE.


487


proving it to be a dip, spur, dropper, gash vein or any one of the
thousand things which mislead the miner. Not one location in twenty
is ever pushed to the depth of a hundred feet; of those so pushed not
more than one in ten proves a valuable mine, and even of tolerably
valuable mines.not one in twenty proves a Caribou, Pelican, Dives
or a Comstock. But if every location were as valuable as the owner
thinks it to be when he first starts down on it, silver would soon
cease to be a precious metal. We might manufacture it into doorhinges.
As a rule only the developed and proved mines are bought by Eastern companies, but in the great speculative era of 1864-66, Colorado
was literally sold out to New York capitalists, who took stock in the
future with amazing readiness.  Thirty-eight companies were organized, with an aggregate capital of $24,000,000! And this when all
the mines in the Territory were not worth the half of that sum.
Hundreds of mere "prospect holes" were purchased at high figures,
and mills were erected to work the ore before the buyers knew of
what kind it was, or whether there was one ton or a million.  The
era of mad speculation has given place to that of practical mining,
and Colorado his advanced to an annual yield in ore and bullion of
from $12,000,000 to $15,000,000.
Colorado is divided nearly down the center by the main chain of
the Rocky Mountains-or, in miner's phrase, " saddle-backed' across
the range."  West of the summit not one acre in a thousand is fit for
any thing but grazing. As depressions in the summit appear the great
parks, a curious and attractive feature of Colorado.  As summer retreats and grazing grounds, they will ultimately be of great value.
The slope eastward from the mountains is the pasture land of the new
State. The whole section is being rapidly dotted with ranches, and
all kinds of stock thrive on the nutritious grasses.  But it is only on
the low land along the streams that farming can be carried on.
At the heads of the Fontaine Que Bouille and other tributaries of
the Arkansas, bounteous nature seems to have exhausted her powers
in the way of scenery and climate. There the sheltered valleys opening to the south are green early in the year; there reluctant summer
lingers longest, and glad spring hastens to return. The hot pools, the
vast reservoirs and bubbling fountains of soda, the m.dicinal springs,
the wooded parks, the gateway to the mountains and the Garden of
the Gods afford unfailing delight. Over all rises Pike's Peak, outlined against a sky of dazzling blue, landmark for a hundred miles
in every direction. Around the heads of all the streams that feed the




488


WESTERN WILDS.


Arkansas are the finest bunch-grass pastures, on which feed vast herds
of sheep and cattle.
The valley of the Arkansas is fertile some distance eastward.  But
a little south the scene changes suddenly, and the extremesouth-eastern part of the Territory lies in that great desert which includes all
the neighboring portions of Texas, New Mexico, Kansas and the Indian Territory. There the water-holes are few and far between; the
thorny mezquit alone can be said to adorn the landscape, and the region
can only be crossed at the risk of death from thirst.  On the southern edge of this desert my friend, Thad. Buckman, took refuge in a
mezquit thicket from the Arapahoes, and, though previously noted for
his modesty, when he got out of there, with his skin hanging in
ribands, he was the worst stuck-up man in the Rocky Mountains.
Every bush has a thorn and every insect a sting; all the Indians are
hostile, and if one should meet a white man, the chances are even that
he is an involuntary exile and a cattle thief. The principal productions are mezquit, tarantulas and centipedes.
The Arkansas was formerly the northern boundary of Mexico, and
across this desert marched, in 1843, from their rendezvous on that
stream, one of the many Texan expeditions against Santa Fe. Its members are now glorified on annual San Jacinto days as noble and devoted
patriots to whom dishonor were worse than death; but I am afraid they
would not know themselves in that character. They arrived almost
dead from starvation at the Mexican settlements, and, having supplied
themselves, found that Governor Armijo had warning of their approach; accordingly they marched back and disbanded.  After a
brief rest a new party was organized, numbering a hundred and eighty,
which found a little better route over the desert, and came up with
the Mexican forces while in fighting condition. Texan histories, in
florid, South-western rhetoric, describe the daring charge anl furious
onslaught of the little army, the fierce conflict and bloody victory, adding in confirmation that the Texans lost two men-wounded! I heard
while in Texas that one of the two cut his fingers accidentally with a
bowie-knife. -Pity those historians had not taken a lesson from Ccesar's
Commentaries-that to praise the enemy's bravery is to exalt the victor.
Turning back from the South-eastern desert to the foot of the mountains, fertility increases with every mile, until we are again among the rich
pastures and mountain meadows along the heads of the streams. Thus
it will be seen that Colorado is naturally divisible into four great sections; twenty thousand square miles of complete barrenness, whether
of mountain or desert; fifty thousand square miles of plain and valley,


4




THE CENTENNIAL STATE..


489


fit only for grazing; an unknown area rich in mines, and perhaps two
thousand square miles of agricultural land. On the grazing lands
cattle and sheep are multiplying by hundreds of thousands yearly, It
is estimated that Eastern Colorado will afford abundant pasturage for
two million sheep and cattle. Facilities for manufacturing exist on
every mountain stream, and great attention is being paid to the production of fine wools.
Farther up in the mountains the few cultivable plats require no irrigation.  From a summer's residence at Georgetown I am convinced
that three times as much rain falls there as at Denver. But elevation
is a great hindrance to crops.  Wheat can be produced at an altitude
of 6,000 feet, oats at 7,000, rye at 7,500, and near Central City I have
seen potatoes yielding bounteously at 9,000 feet.  Colorado flour has
attained a world-wide celebrity.  Enthusiastic prophets speak of reclaiming all the barren plains, but I respectfully submit that it is impossible, unless the climate changes. All the streams in Eastern Colorado would not supply irrigation for a strip across the Territory ten
miles wide. The high plains are irreclaimable by any process which
wvould be remunerative, and must continue for many centuries to be
the herd-grounds of the West.
What, then, are the possibilities of Colorado?  If the pressure ofpopulation is to be no greater than in the Ohio Valley, I estimate it
as follows: 200,000 engaged in agriculture and mining, and as many
in stock-ranching, manufacturing and commerce. But the floating,
or rather visiting, population will always be large. Colorado's beauties are of a kind that art can not mar.  No amount of "improvement" can lessen the grandeur of her peaks, the romance of her secluded canions, the reviving air and inspiring scenery of her wonderful parks; time will only more fully demonstrate the value of her
mineral springs, and in her Western Wilds many successive generations of sportsmen will find health and relaxation.
In general intelligence Colorado is not surpassed by any community in the world. Dullards and desperadoes do not build up such
a commonwealth as this. A hundred thousand people who have created in eighteen years a wealth of fifty millions, and now add fifteen
millions annually to the national treasure; who support a score of
daily and weekly papers; who organized civil government out of
social chaos, and have grown to Statehood with so little trouble to
the nation, may be trusted to govern themselves wisely in the future.
Whether in material or moral greatness, we may be justly proud of
our Centennial State.




CHAPTER XXXI.


THE MORMON MURDERERS.
IN September, 1874, I resumed my residence in Salt Lake City, and
there remained one year-part of the time as Clerk of the Supreme
Court of Utah, the remainder as assistant editor of the Daily Tribune.
The sensation of that autumn was the capture and imprisonment of
John D. Lee; of the next summer, his arraignment and trial. In tlhe
two years after I left him at his stronghold on the Colorado, he had
grown bolder and visited the nearest settlements without disguise,
fully persuaded that all the Mormons were as devoted to his safety as
they had shown themselves to be fifteen years before.  But lie was
mistaken. While he enjoyed the society of some of his younger
wives at Panguitch, on the Sevier River, some one conveyed a hint to
the United States Marshal at Beaver, and a scheme was at once concerted for the capture of the murderer.
Marshal Owens, with a posse of five men, set out from Beaver just
after dark, and by night marches, lying concealed in the timber by
day, came upon Panguitch just after daylight. But cautious as he had
been, before he got into town word was conveyed to Lee, and the latter had time to hide.  Once in the town the Marshal and posse found
a dense ignorance prevailing. Nobody knew whether John D. Lee
had a wife there, or where she lived, or what name she went by.
Enraged at this general collusion with the criminal, the posse seized a
small boy, who afterwards proved to be Lee's son, and threatened him
with death unless he directed them to the house.  The little Mormon
gazed calmly at his captor, then at the pistol in the latter's hand, and
said, "Shoot away, d-n ye; I don't know nothin' about it."  Had
not all the roads been guarded, the murderer could even then have
escaped.  Meanwhile the sun rose and the citizens went about their
daily tasks; but it was evident that a few were all the time within
easy reach of the posse, and that a word from the bishop or ruling
elder of the place would have precipitated a bloody fight.  Fortunately the right house was found before there was time for consultation
among the criminals.  The nest was warm, but the bird had flown,
In the cow-yard was an old shed; the under logs had been pulled out,
(490)




THE MORMON MURDERERS.


491


and the roof was now only four or five feet from the ground and covered with straw.  It looked like a shapeless heap of straw, but was a
hog-pen and chicken-coop.  As long as the posse searched the house
the women were passive enough; but when Marshal Owens commenced examining this straw pile, the older one hastily grabbed a
gun. That settled it.
"He's here," said the Marshal, quietly, and the pen was surrounded.
CAPTURE OF JOHN D. LEE
The woman had been disarmed, but Lee's retainers were flocking in
from all sides.  A cordon of Mormons already surrounded the house
and cow-yard.  The women seemed to be urging them on, and a few
of them came forward to the pen.  It was discovered that Lee had
thirty sons, sons-in-law and grandsons in Panguitch, besides some
wives and more distant relations. The posse numbered but five.
Marshal Owens gazed long and earnestly into the little dark hole,
the only entrance to the pen; and when his eyes grew accustomed to
the darkness, he saw a greenish, glaring pair confronting him from
the black corner. Here was his man-but how to get him?   Determined not to risk his men's lives, the Marshal directed them to cut
into the straw pile at the rear, while he would keep watch, and if the
man made a motion, would shoot. At these words the inside man
exclaimed:
"Don't shoot, boys. I'll come out."  And he did.
Once secured, Lee grew unnaturally social and even merry. He
urged the posse to come into the house, and ordered his wives to cook
breakfast for all parties immediately. But the Gentiles did not'eel so




492


WESTERN WILDS.


merry. The whole town appeared to be concentrating in that vicinity.
It was evident the place contained at least seventy-five fighting men,
and that they only waited a signal from Lee, or some one else, to
begin.  Directing his men to keep their weapons in constant readiness, and placing two of them as a special guard over Lee, the Marshal informed that worthy that the first move towards a rescue would
be the signal for his instant death.  The signal was not given.  The
posse ate breakfast, silently and in haste, and departed for the hills,
the whole population waiting and watching. By forced marches the
Gentiles reached Beaver next morning, and John D. Lee soon reposed
in the strong room at Camp Cameron with fifty pounds of iron on his
person. I
Before entering on the details of his trial it is necessary to give
some particulars of the crime, a thousand times told, for which he
finally suffered. It was the result of three motives, prominent in the
order named: revenge, lust for plunder and fanaticism. When the
Latter-day Saints left Illinois, 20,000 strong, they hurled back apostolic curses at the whole Gentile nation.  That nation, they said, had
rejected the gospel by the murder of the Prophet and Patriarch, and
should perish in its sins.' In the Rocky Mountains the Saints would
establish a kingdom, and in due time take vengeance on their enemies.
In the endowment oaths, every true Mormon was sworn to avenge the
death of Joseph Smith. A peculiar system of diplomacy and attempt
to establish a theocracy in the States, had brought the Saints into conflict with the Americans, and now that conflict was made the means
of uniting them more solidly against the Gentile world.  With the
doctrine of a temporal kingdom came in the long train of Hebraic
similes: the Church was in bondage in Egypt; it was in the wilderness of Zin; it was to overthrow the Amalekites (Missourians), and
repeat all the wonderful achievements in the fruitful annals of Israel.
And as the Amalekites resisted, and many Mormons grew disaffected,
all the bloody devices of the ancient Hebrews were legalized, and thus
Mormonism became the terrible thing it was in 1856 and '57.
When they first settled in Utah they determined their government
should be a pure theocracy, but it was necessary to have some form
which the United States would recognize, to give jurisdiction over
Gentiles who might pass through or tarry in Zion. A State government was agreed upon.   Its boundaries were declared to be from
the summit of the Sierras to that of the Rocky Mountains, and from
latitude 42~ down to the Mohave Desert and divide of the Colorado
plateau; it contained all the present Utah and Nevada, with consider



T-HE MORMON MURDERERS.


493


able portions of Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona. The proposition cardied by a unanimous vote (all propositions do in the Mormon Church), and the heads of the theocracy were in like manner
elected chiefs in the " State of Deseret: " Brigham Young, Governor;
Daniel H. Wells, Chief Justice and Lieutenant-General; the Twelve
Apostles divided the Judgeships and State officers among them; the
State Senate was made up of Presiding Bishops, the House of inferior
Bishops and Elders, and the local officers in counties were appointed
according to priestly rank.  This queer institution ran a year.  The
Legislature immediately assembled and divided the whole adjacent
territory into grants; the timber, streams, pasture lands, and valleys
were given to the heads of the Church; they in turn parceled them
out, each to his laity, and thus color of title was established to all the
land in Utah of any value. As Brigham pithily said, "wIf there's
nothing for the d-d Gentiles to settle on, they can't settle." And
they didn't.
Congress, in the long and memorable session of 1850, cut up our
new possessions into various governments, and, among others, established the Territory of Utah-about two and a half times as large as
it is now; of which Territory President Fillmore, with his customary
sense of propriety, appointed Brigham Young Governor! Immediately the whole State machinery of Deseret was floated on to the new
government. As far as the Organic Act of Utah gave power, all the
old officials were chosen in the new system; the Legislature re-assembled, sat six months (its expenses were now paid from Washington),
confirmed in bulk most of the legislation of "Deseret," and divided
up all the valleys which had since been discovered. Thus began that
remarkable interlock of church and state, the most perfect despotism
of modern times, which lasted unbroken for twenty years-until Judge
McKean and his colleagues made the first breach, in 1870.
The average citizen can have no conception of the empire obtained
by this theocracy over the minds and fortunes of its subjects.  Three
concurrent governments took charge of every detail of common life:
the territorial or civil of all affairs concerning Gentiles, or cases between Gentile and Mormon; the ecclesiastical of all religious questions; and the Church civil system of all the industries and commerce
of the people.  Brigham was Prophet and Seer in the ecclesiastical;
First President in the industrial and civil; for seven years Governor
in the territorial government, and long afterwards virtual dictator of
the policy of his successors. The same Inan. in an outer settlement was
Judge under the Territory, Bishop under the Church, and "President




494


WESTERN WILDS.


of the Stake" in the civil and industrial organization. John D. Lee
was Bishop of one settlement, President of a "stake" oi'commune,
Major of the county militia, Representative of the same county in the
Legislature, official Indian interpreter, the husband of eighteen wives,
and father, from first to last, of sixty-four children. Isaac Haight, his
colleague in murder, was likewise a Bishop, a Captain in the militia,
member of the council (upper house of the Territorial Legislature),
husband of four wives, and father of numerous children.  Wm. H.
Dame was Colonel of the regiment ordered out to commit the massacre, and Bishop of Parowan, and held numerous minor offices. Higby,
probably the most blood-thirsty of the lot, was an inferior Elder, a
Captain ln the militia, and generally held some executive office under
the Territory. Bill Stewart, who boasted for years after the massacre
that he "took the d-d Gentile babies by the heels and cracked their
skulls over the wagon tires," was only a private in the ranks, but for
years before and after the massacre a member of the Church in good
standing, as were all the other murderers down to the very day the
United States officers chased them into the mountains. And yet there
are good souls who maintain that the Mormon Church bears no moral
responsibility for this massacre.
Had an inferior officer of our army, when camped before Washington, gone into the country and massacred the people of a Virginia
village without regard to age or sex, and had General Grant not only
overlooked the offense, but promoted the offender, the world would
have resounded with denunciations.  Yet the control General Grant
had over his army was laxity itself compared with that Brigham
Young had over Mormondom.    To say that these men, of their own
motion, and without a hint from head-quarters, did such a deed, is to
say what every old resident of Utah knows to be a transparent falsehood. For fifteen years these men had never once followed their own
minds in any matter of importance.  One must take "counsel of the
priesthood" on all occasions, whether he would go abroad or remain
at home, open a farm, or go into trade, buy a cow or take an extra
wife.  There was no corner of the mountains sb remote but some
theocratic arm reached it. There were no walls high enough or thick
enough to shut out church spies; there was no domestic confidence
*   that was safe, for the ward teachers were expressly instructed to visit
weekly every family in their jurisdiction, and "examine the man apart
from his wife and the wife apart from the man, to the end that heresy
may be rooted out." To say that this was the first crime of these men
is to say what every lawyer knows to be folly. Criminals are not




THE MORMON MURDERERS.


made in a day. M3en do not become utter and conscienceless villains
just for one occasion.  Whole communities do not suddenly turn to
assassins. Starkie and Greenleaf teach a sounder philosophy of crime.
The whole previous life-time of the Mormon Church was no more thin
enough to educate men to such action.
Perhaps all these causes would not have been sufficient, but the year
1856 was full of disaster and incitements to fanaticism.  The Church
leaders had determined that immigrants from Europe should walk
from the Missouri to Salt Lake City, and trundle hand-carts loaded
with their baggage; and the first attempt resulted in frightful suffering
and three hundred deaths.  This dire calamity appeared to excite an
epidemic madness in Utah.
The "Reformation" which had already set in, now became a veritable reign of terror.  The doctrine of "blood atonement," or killing
men to save their souls, was taught by Brigham Young, Orson Hyde,
and others.  In all the sermons of that period one will not find
twenty quotations from the New Testament, but every page is red
with the bloody maxims of the Mosaic code.
Meanwhile, Parley P. Pratt, "Isaiah of the Latter-day Church,"
was killed in Arkansas by Hector McLean, whose wife Pratt had
taken away some time before.  To the Gentiles this would seem but
the rash act of an outraged husband; to the Mormons it appeared the
murder of an able apostle, who had obeyed the "celestial laws," in
taking another man's wife.  The spring of 1857 found the Mormon
community in a mixed state of fanatic enthusiasm, grief for the lost,
zeal for the cause, and fierce anger against the whole American race.
While in this state the news arrived that President Buchanan had removed Brigham Young from the Governorship, and determined to
station a part of the army in Utah.  The immediate consequences
were frightful.
A yell of rage and defiance sounded from one end of the Territory
to the other. The few American officials who remained slipped out at
once.  Dr. Hurt, Indian agent, did not trust the roads, but was
piloted through the mountains by the Utes.  All the apostates who
could do so fled at once.  The rest held their peace, or outdid the
orthodox in their zeal.  Several frightful murders and still more
frightful mutilations took place.  To deprive a dangerous man of
virility was regarded almost as a joke. Dozens of cases are known to
have occurred between 1856 and 1863-those being the years in
which the "blood atonement" doctrine was preached. All opposition
was silenced, and the people were hot for war. Wheat was dried and




496


WESTERN WILDS.


cached in the mountains preparatory to a guerrilla war; and every
able-bodied male was under arms. Brigham issued a proclamation
warning all emigrants out of the Territory, and announced in a sermon that if they came, he "would turn the Indians loose on them."
While things were in this state, the doomed train arrived in Salt Lake
City.
It was, perhaps, the richest train that ever crossed the plains.
There were half a dozen or more wealthy old gentlemen from Missouri and Arkansas, with their sons, sons-in-law and their several
families, including a large number of young ladies; also a few young
men from Vermont, a German doctor and man of science, two lads from
some Eastern city, and a son of Dr. Aden, of Kentucky. All the
Missouri and Arkansas people were related by blood, and when they
were killed a whole clan, so to s4eak, was cut off. The recovered
children, in many instances, could find no relations. There were forty
wagons, several hundred horses and cattle, a piano, some elegant carriages, several riding horses for the young ladies, and an immense
amount of jewelry, clothing, and minor articles. The value of
the booty taken has been estimated all the way from $150,000 to
$300,000.
Seeing that they were in a hostile country they hastened on; but as
they advanced southward from Salt Lake (they were going to Los
Angeles), they found the people steadily more hostile. They were
denied passage through some of the towns, and had to make a detour
on the desert; they could purchase no provisions, and found that in
spite of themselves they were constantly violating municipal ordinances, and liable to arrest. At Beaver they were joined by a Missourian who had been in custody among the Mormons; he urged them
to hurry on as they valued their lives. Passing through Cedar City it
is believed they saw signs of their coming danger and redoubled their
exertions to get beyond the Utah limits. At last they reached the
glen known as Mountain Meadows, on the "'divide" between the
waters flowing into the Great Basin and those draining into the Colorado, and paused to recruit their stock before entering on the NinetyMile Desert.
Meanwhile some secret work, not yet fully explained, had been
going on at Salt Lake City. There is some evidence that a plan was
once agreed upon to have the emigrants killed as they crossed the
Provo "bench,' only forty miles from Salt Lake; but it was finally
thought best to let them get beyond the settlements. George A. Smith,
Brigham's First Councillor, went south ahead of the party, forbidding




THE MOMRMON MURDERERS.


497


the people to sell them any grain; and some lawyers, who have examined the evidence, think he planned the massacre, as he then held military command of all the Territory south of Provo. Down to this
point all agree upon the facts; what follows rests upon testimony from
many sources:
Philip Klingensmith, Mormon Bishop and participant in the crime,
who fled to Nevada, made a full confession, and was the main witness
on the trial; Joel White, a private in the militia, also present at the
massacre, unwillingly, as he claims; one Hawley, a lad, also present;
several boys who assisted in burying the dead; Robert Keyes, who
saw the dead soon after, and was familiar with the local accounts;
Asahel Bennet, who visited the scene and saw the dead; the confession of Spencer, a school teacher in St. George, who died of grief and
remorse for his share in the act; Albert, an Indian boy, who was
herding sheep for Jacob Hamlin, in the upper end of the Meadows;
several Indian chiefs who assisted at the massacre; Mrs. Ann Eliza
Hoge, a French Mormon woman, "plural wife" of one of the leaders,
who was present at the "councils" where the death of the emigrants
was determined upon; the various confessions of John D. Lee, and a
mass of collateral testimony. The evidence is conclusive as to the following facts:
The day after the emigrants passed Harmony, John D. Lee, Bishop
and President, called a council and stated that he had received command "to follow and attack the accursed Gentiles, and let the arrows
of the Almighty drink their blood." He stated that they were from
Missouri, which had expelled God's people, and from Arkansas, which
had sanctioned the murder of the apostle; he recited the Hawn's Mill
massacre of Mormons, the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and
others, and called for an affirmative vote. All hands were held up,
and the expedition was at once fitted out. Lee turned out the Indians
under his charge, who surrounded the emigrants and prevented their
going on, while a regular call was made on the county militia by
Col. W. H. Dame, Major John D. Lee, and Captains Haight and
Higby. The siege lasted eight days, during which a few emigrants
were killed.
Some men living in the vicinity testify that they were ordered out
as militia; others that they went at command of the Bishop, and still
others that they were asked to go but managed to avoid it. Two men
say that they sat inside the wall of a garden all night, talking and
praying while the wagons carrying supplies ran back and forward;
that they wept and asked the forgiveness of God if they were about
32




498


WESTERN WILDS.


to do wrong, but finally had to go along with their company of militia. When all were collected at the Meadows, on the eighth day of
the siege, Lee and some others bore a flag of truce to the emigrants,
and arranged for their surrender. They were to give up every thing,
including their arms, be taken back to the settlement and taken care
of, but held till the war was over.  On this agreement they started
on their return.  There were sixty fighting men, forty women, and
forty-eight children. In front were two wagons, driven by Mormons
and containing the men wounded in the siege; behind them were the
women and children, and lastly the men. Beside the men marched
MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE.
the Mormon militia in single file. Off on either side were mounted
men to intercept any wllo might break through the lines. A hollow
crosses the road there; on each side of the way as it enters the hollow
are rocks and bushes where the Indians lay in ambush. As testified
to by one witness, the women talked joyfully of their rescue from
the Indians, and thanked God that they were under the protection of
white men.
All was in readiness. As the wagons passed the gully and the
women and children were just entering it, Ike Higbee, standing on the
bluff above, waved his hand as a signal. Haight gave command:
Halt! fire!  On the instant the Mormon militia turned, and with




THE MORMON MURDERERS.


499


their guns almost touching their victims, discharged one volley, and
almost every man of the emigrants fell dead. With loud screams the
women and children turned and ran back toward the men. The Indians and Mormons rushed upon them, shooting, stabbing, braining,
and in twenty minutes six score of Americans lay dead upon the
ground, the hapless victims of Mormonism. No circumstance of horror was lacking. Indians and Mormons bit and tore the rings from
the fingers and ears of the women, and with insulting yells trampled
on the faces of the dying.
One girl knelt and begged a son of John D. Lee for life. He hesitated, but the father pushed him aside, and shot her through the
head. Several broke through the line,' but were killed by the
mounted men. Two girls ran down the gully and over the ridge, to
the slope where the Indian boy Albert was hid, to watch the massacre. He says that they begged him to save them, and he directed
them where to hide in a thicket. The next minute John D. Lee and
Bill Stewart came galloping across the hollow, and, with savage
curses, ordered him to point out the runaways. He dared not disobey, and soon the girls were dragged out. Kneeling to Lee, they
poured out the most passionate prayers for mercy-they would be his
slaves, would never betray him, would work for him forever. While
one clung to his knees he jerked her suddenly upon her back, and,
placing his knee upon her breast, cut her throat from ear to ear! The
other had, meanwhile, run away. He overtook her, and, by a savage
blow on the back of the head with a ragged stone, crushed in her
skull.  Both these bodies were missed by the burying party, and,
strange to say, lay there ten days untouched by the wolves. When
Hamlin returned from Salt Lake City, Albert pointed them out, and
they were buried.  Hamlin adds that there was not the mark of a
tooth on either body, and no sign. of decay, so pure was the air.
Their fair countenances were like those of persons just dead, and their
handsome forms untouched by the beasts and birds of prey. Nature
and the wild beasts of the mountain were kinder to them than men
of their own race and color.
Mrs. Hamnlin, wife of Jacob Hamlin above mentioned, before her
death gave this account:
*   "A Mormon woman, far advanced in pregnancy, was at Hamlin's;
her husband was driving one of the wagons containing the wounded,
having been ordered on that duty by Bishop Klingensmith. When
the masslre began this man took a fit, and soon died of excitement
or fright. When the bloody wagon, containing the children and the




500


WESTERN WILDS.


dead body of her husband, was brought to Hamlin's, this woman went
into a spasm, prematurely gave birth to a child, then became insane,
and lingered twelve years a raving maniac." The driver of the other
wagon says that besides children and wounded men he had in his
wagon a venerable old man, with long white beard, richly dressed, and
evidently a man of consequence among the emigrants. He insists that
this old man jumped out of the front end of the wagon, got into the
bushes, and was never captured. None of the burying party could
ever find his body. Possibly the poor old man wandered awhile in
the mountains, afraid to approach any settlement, and either died of
want in some lonely place or was killed 'by the Indians.
One witness-a lad at the time, and present with the militia-says
that when they came to look over the ground he found one woman
only stunned and recovering consciousness. Bill Stewart ordered him
to kill her at once.
"Never!" was his reply. "I've got none of this blood on my
soul, and don't intend to have any."
Stewart cursed him for a coward, then stepped behind the woman
who had risen to her feet, and drove a bowie-knife to the hilt in her
side.
Three men escaped the general massacre. The night before the
closing scene the party first became convinced that white men were
besieging them. They then drew up a paper addressed to the Masons,
Odd Fellows, Baptists, and Methodists of the States, " and to all good
people every-where," in which they stated their condition, and implored help if there was time; if not, justice. To this were attached
the signatures of so many members of various lodges and churches in
Missouri and Arkansas. With this paper three of their best scouts
crept down a ravine and escaped, starting afoot for California. The
next day Ira Hatch and a band of Indians were put upon their track.
They came upon them asleep on the Santa Clara Mountain, and killed
two as they slept. The third escaped, shot through the wrist. He
traveled on and was relieved by the Vegas Indians, on the Santa
Clara. After a day's rest he started on, but meeting John M. Young
and another, they told him it would be madness to attempt the NinetyMile Desert in his condition, and promised to try and smuggle him
through to Salt Lake City. A few hours after, they met Hatch and
his Indians on the hunt for the fugitive. Said Hatch, "Boys, you can
pass, we've nothing against you, but this nan must die." The doomed
man thanked'the boys for their trouble, offered a moving pAlyer, and
submitted to his fate. Unwilling to look on his death, Young galloped




THE MORMON MURDERERS.


501


away. A few rods off some impulse caused him to halt and turn'
around. The Indians had shot the fugitive full of arrows; he was
still upon his knees, and an Indian just drawing a knife across his
throat. This brings the whole number murdered up to a hundred and
thirty-one. The paper dropped by the fugitives was given by an Indian to Jacob Hamlin, Church Indian Agent, who kept it many.
years; but one day showing it to Lee, the latter took it from him and
destroyed it.
The bloody deed was done-the most cruel, pitiless, massacre white
men were ever guilty of. It only remained to divide the spoil and
guard against discovery. A tithe of the plunder was turned over to
the Church. The Indians received the arms and ammunition and
some of the clothing; but long complained that they did not get their
share. The finest stock was distributed among the dignitaries in the
neighborhood; and in 1872, Bishop Windsor, of Pipe Springs, Arizona, pointed out to me cattle in his own herd descended from stock
taken at Mountain Meadows. Forty head of cattle were driven to
Salt Lake City, and traded for.boots and shoes to Hon. William H.
Hooper. Thirteen years afterward this man stood up in his place in
the American Congress, and solemnly called God to witness that the
Mormons had nothing to do with this massacre-it was all the work
of the Indians. The clothing, even that stripped from the corpses, was
put in the cellar of the tithing house at Cedar City, and "sold to pay
expenses." The carriages, wagons, and jewelry were divided among
the leaders. And then, Major John D. Lee, as military commandant,
and Philip Klingensmith, as bishop, went to Salt Lake City and laid
a full report before Brigham  Young-" Governor of Utah and exofficio Superintendent of Indian Affairs," by the grace of His Excellency Franklin Pierce.
And what then? Of course there was a loud outcry for justice; of
course there was a legislative committee of inquiry; of course the
Governor of Utah promptly moved upon the criminals, and the exofficio Superintendent of Indian Affairs reported it to the department.
Nothing of the kind. Brigham sent word to the Bishops, " Let no
man talk about this thing-do n't mention it even among yourselvesespecially let the women keep silent about it. Let it be forgotten as
soon as possible."  Haight and Lee came up to Salt Lake as senator
and representative; sat that winter in the legislature; attended the
usual dinner given by Gov. Brigham Young, and each went home
with a young wife, sealed to them in the Endowment House by the
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, Brigham Young! Nobody left the




502


WESTERN WILDS.


neighborhood; nobody lost caste. Lee remained a bishop for fourteen
years afterward. Dame.is a bishop yet; Higbee is a prominent citizen,
and Haight was still a bishop when I last saw him in 1872. The
dead were buried; peace was made by Commissioners Powell and
McCulloch with King Brigham; a new emigrant road was laid off,
lest Gentiles might discover something in passing through the meadows, and no mention of the affair was made in Mormon society or in
the Mormon organ, the Deseret News.
And so all was done, and the dread secret was safe. The last adult
emigrant had fed the wolves; the only child old enough to remember
any thing about it had " disappeared," and the rest, distributed in
various settlements, soon looked upon the Mormons as their people,
and forgot that they ever had Gentile parents. Even the women,
obeying Brigham  implicitly, "quit. talking about it."  Lee called a
meeting of all who were at the former council, and swore them to
eternal secrecy, under penalty of the punishment invoked in their
endowment oaths. Brigham preached in the neighborhood, was the
guest of Lee, and urged the brethren "to be united and not tale-bearers, one against another."  All avenues of discovery were apparently
shut up. The job was a complete one. The secret was safe.
"Ah gentlemen!" said Webster, of a similar case; "that was a
terrible mistake. Such a secret is safe nowhere. The universe of
God has no corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe.
The human heart was not made to be the depository of such a secret.
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession."  Even the banded murderers of Mormondom    could' not
keep it. There were too many concerned. There were men with
human blood in their hearts; there were women with mothers' milk
in their breasts. They could not carry so oppressive a secret. The
madness of 1856 and '57 wore itself out. Dazed and bewildered, men
slowly emerged from the state of excitement, and asked themselves
what had been done. Strange rumors spread northward from settlement to settlement. Some of the boys from Washington County came
north after the peace, and met their friends who had served against
Johnston's army; and often muttered over their cups that they did
not like " the business they had been engaged in down south." A
lad in Beaver began to act very strangely-he drank deep of native
whisky, and never staggered under it; but told of very strange things
that he saw.
Young Spencer wasted to a skeleton, and wrote imploring letters
to his bishop and to Brigham Young, begging for some word to re



THE MORMON MURDERERS.


503


lieve his remorse. All at once several young Mormons ran away
from that section, and the next spring an account of the massacre
appeared in a California paper. But the young Mormon who brought
it never showed himself again, and the editor was laughed at. Pretty
soon, however, it was found that a company of emigrants certainly
was lost; and then Brigham Young spoke out.
The Deseret News officially pronounced it a lie. Privately the
leaders said: "It was a necessity-we only regret that they had to
kill the women." Still new facts kept coming out, and in 1859 Judge
Cradlebaugh, with a military escort, visited the section, collected the
available evidence, and published it. Since then the Mormons have
fallen back pointby point. First they insisted no such thing occurred; then, for a few years, that it was the work of Indians alone.
About 1865 they began hesitatingly to admit that " a few reprobate
whites were engaged-men of no standing in the community." In
1869 the writer hereof collected and published a mass of newly discovered evidence on the subject; in 1870 the Federal officials made a
little inquiry. In 1871 the Mormons nominally cut off John D. Lec
from fellowship, and sent him on a mission down to the Colorado.
There I visited him in July, 1872; spent three days at his house, and
heard his version of the massacre.
Meamvhile public sentiment among the Mormons was growing
better. Old Mormons died; young ones grewt up infidels; Gentile
notions took root, and it began to be whispered that murder was a
crime even when done by a priest. In 1874 Congress passed a law
which took the organization of juries out of the hands of Brigham
Young, and all at once there was abundant evidence forthcoming.
Then followed the indictment, the capture of Lee, and flight of the
others accused, except Bishop Dame, who was arrested soon after Lee.
The law's delay and the awkwardness attendant on getting a new jury
system into operation prevented Lee's being tried till midsummer,
1875.  Then the Mormon town of Beaver became the scene of a
strange drama. Correspondents from the East and West flocked
thither, and for the first time a little of the inner life of Mormondom
was brought to light in open court, and reported to all the world.
The most incredulous were compelled to acknowledge Mormon guilt,
and there began the series of trials which will eventually make the
world acquainted with Brigham Young as he is.
It required the most persevering exertions to get the witnesses together. When Lee was "cut off" from the Church, in 1871, al! the
Mormons in one day, as it were, changed their tone and began to




604


WESTERN WILDS.


denounce him as the bloodiest villain of the age.  In fact they were
extremely anxious to have him punished-they even wanted him
strung up at once. As the day of trial drew near, you might have
read in all the Mormon prints savage denunciations of his crime, and
pitiful plaints "that innocent and noble men should have been accused
of complicity with it." When it was announced that Lee was about
to turn State's evidence, the Mormon prints indulged in joyful congratulations that his statement would "completely exonerate President
Young and the Heads of the Church."  All this looked very strange,
to say the least. And, sure enough, when Lee's statement was submitted to the District Attorney it was easily proved to be a tissue of
lies from beginning to end, as shown by abundant testimony.  All
the guilty, he said, were either dead or out of the Territory long ago.
Not a line did it contain about any one of those in custody. It is
now believed to have been a Church trick from the start. The only
guilty man, according to Lee, was Klingensmith, the principal witness against him.
This confession was afterwards repudiated by Lee himself; and, of
the four he made, the last one alone contained the truth. The trial
was set for July 12, 1875, in the District Court of the Second District
of Utah, presided over by Hon. Jacob S. Boreman. This gentleman
deserves more than a passing notice. A brother of Senator Boreman,
of West Virginia, but long a resident of Western Missouri, he unites
the genial qualities of the typical Western man with the earnestness
of a thorough lawyer; and is, withal, a devout Christian, and a man of
irreproachable morals. When he went to Beaver, it was the center of
the most unpromising section of Mormondom; but undeterred by
the spirit of disloyalty and hatred to Gentile laws aad institutions
which animated that community, he has held steadily on his course.
As an official, he has maintained the dignity of the judiciary; as a
Christian, he has fostered.the Church and Sabbath-school; as a citizen,
he has been of immense advantage to the place. Even his enemies
have learned to respect him; and, as the American population grows
in numbers, he enjoys the warm friendship of all who make his acquaintance.
Hon. William C. Carey, United States District Attorney, assisted
by R. N. Baskin, Esq., of Salt Lake City, and Judge Wheedon, of
Beaver, conducted the prosecution.  The prisoner's counsel were
Messrs. J. G. Sutherland, G. C. Bates, Judge Hoge (a Mormon),
Wecls Spicer, and W. W. Bishop, the last named of Pioche.   It
was evident from the start that there were grave differences be



THE MORMON MURDERERS.


505


tween the attorneys for the defense. Messrs. Spicer and Bishop were
earnestly laboring for the acquittal of their client; to them the Mormon Church was a secondary affair, end they would willingly have
cleared Lee by proving that he had orders from his military and ecclesiastical superiors. Messrs. Sutherland and Bates, on the other hand,
were really the attorneys of the Church, employed and paid by Brigham Young. That interest was totally indifferent to the fate of Lee,
if only the inquiry could be made to stop with him, and the heads of
the Church suffer no stain. This want of harmony produced curious
and ludicrous results through the entire trial. The first difficulty was
in selecting a jury. The two hundred names from which it was to
be drawn, under the terms of the Poland Bill, were half of Mormons
and half of Gentiles. Then was shown the difficulty attendant on all
judicial proceedings with men who held their duty to a church to
absolve them from allegiance to the state. The Saints swore without
hesitation that they had formed no opinion; many of the Gentiles
admitted they had; so the jury, as finally settled upon, consisted of
nine Mormons, three Gentiles, and one "Jack-Mormon.". Consider
the following cases of jurors sworn upon their voir dire, and picture
to yourself a scene which certainly could have occurred in no other
part of 1the world than Utah:
Joseph Knight, sworn on his voir dire-Was a native; lived three
years in same town with Lee, but never heard much about him; had
formed no opinion. Accepted.
George F. Jarvis sworn-Had lived in St. George (where most of
the perpetrators now live) fourteen years; had heard little or no talk
of the "affair;" had formed no opinion.  Accepted.  This Jarvis
looked like a thorough " Danite."
Robert Heyborne sworn-Had lived eighteen years in Cedar City,
a neighbor to Lee; had heard nothing more than rumor (!!) about
such an occurrence; had no opinion! Challenged by prosecution.
Christopher J. Arthur (a son-in-law of Isaac C. Haight, one of the
accused) sworn-Lived in Cedar City at the time of the "reported
difficulty;" was a member of the militia, but was entirely ignorant of
any facts; might have heard something about it; did not remember;
formed no opinion. Challenged by prosecution.
John C. Duncan sworn-Had* lived twenty-two years in Utah, but
heard nothing about the massacre! Had visited Mountain Meadows
and saw the grave and a monument, but never asked what it was for!
Never heard any body say any thing about any massacre, and had
formed no opinions  Accepted as a "model juror."   And so on




506


WESTERN WILDS.


through the list. What a world of trouble Brooklyn courts might
have saved, if they had allowed Plymouth Church to select jurors.
This sort of thing occupied several days. Meanwhile the deputy
marshals were scouring the country in search of witnesses, every sort
of obstruction being thrown in their way by the people. The secretiveness and cunning of the Mormon laity renders proof of daring
crime a work of extreme difficulty. "Keep still and mind your own
business," is the standing exhortation to the men. "If you see a dog
run by the door with your husband's head in its mouth, say nothing
till you have consulted with the bishop," are the exact words in which
Brigham counseled the women of this district. Joel White, an important witness, was brought in with great difficulty.  Marshal Cross
traversed the Great Desert alone, and found Klingensmith in Southern California. On Sunday, July 18th, Lee's "confession" was read
by the prosecution, and promptly rejected as unworthy of belief. On
Friday, the 23d, the trial at last began. After an able opening address by District Attorney Carey, Robert Keyes was put upon the
witness stand, and testified as follows:
"In October, 1857, he passed through Mountain Meadows valley,
which is situated south-west of Cedar City. Saw two piles of bodies,
one composed of women and children, the other of men; the bodies
were entirely nude, and seemed to have been thrown promiscuously
together; they appeared to have been massacred. Should judge there
were sixty or seventy bodies of women and children; saw one man in
that pile; the children were aged from one and two months up to
twelve years; the small children were most destroyed by wolves and
crows; the throats of some were cut, others stabbed with knives; some
had balls through them. All the bodies were more or less torn to
pieces, except one, the body of e woman, which lay apart a little
south-west of the pile. This showed no signs of decay, and had not
been touched by the wild animals. The countenance was placid, and
seemed to be asleep. The work was not freshly done —supposed the
bodies had been here fifteen or sixteen days.  Witness passed the
ground October 2d, 1857. There were eleven in the company. Seven
went to see the pile of slaughtered men which lay a few rods off.
Witness did not go. All the clothing he saw was a stocking on the
leg of one of the bodies. The woman lying apart had a bullet hole
on the left side, a little below the heart."
Asahel Bennett, of the same party, testified to substantially the same
facts. Then Philip Klingensmith was called, and there was a general
movement in the audience.  Every eye and ear'was strained, and the




THE MORMON MURDERERES.


507


man was thoroughly photographed by every attendant. He was a
heavy, rather stolid looking Dutchman, six feet high, well muscled,
slow, heavy, and phlegmatic. He had been indicted along with the
others, and a nolle entered. He began with extreme slowness, amounting almost to stupidity, but as he wvent along gradually grew more animated; his dull eye lit up, the blue veins stood out on his forehead,
and his every feature and muscle seemed to work as in sympathy with
the horrors he was reciting. In the most blood-curdling scene, where
he told of the shooting of some women who had children in their
arms, every eye in the room turned as with one impulse to Lee. His
light hair fairly vibrated with emotion; his Hibernian features were
mingled red and purple; and, as he literally shook in his chair, the
great veins stood out on his neck like cords, and he seemed to grasp at
his throat as if choking! In that awful moment he tasted the bitterness of death. I would not have recognized him as the man at whose
table.1 ate, three years before, on the Colorado. Beside him sat two
of his wives, and close by, most of the Gentile ladies of Beaver.
The material part of Klingensmith's testimony ran thus:
'"We were halted a quarter of a mile from the emigrants, and in
full sight. A man went on with a flag of truce. A person came out
from the emigrant camp, and Lee went down, and he and the emigrant
negotiated. They sat down and had a long talk. Lee then went inside the camp, and the soldiers stood in line three or four hours. Lee
was inside the intrenchment most of the time, and finally the emigrants came out.
" Higbee ordered the proceedings.  Lee went ahead with the
wagons containing the men wounded in the attack made by the
Indians.  The young children and women were marched behind.
The men came out next in double rank. The soldiers marched
by their side with their pieces across their arms. We were protecting the emigrants. Some expressed their thankfulness at being delivered from the Indians.  We marched from a quarter to half a
mile, and command was given to halt. The soldiers had been instructed when they halted to fire on the emigrants; might have been
shifted to single rank; think they were. Higbee gave the orders to
fire; suppose there were fifty men killed; might have been more;
none escaped; saw some attempt; there were mounted men to dispatch the fugitives. Bill Stewart chased one fleeing man; I think I
saw him fall; he did not go far. Ira Allen was mounted and placed
on the left wing. Witness was with the men in the ranks and fired
one time. John M. Higbee cut one man's throat. One large woman


4 *




508


WESTERN WILDS.


came running from the wagons calling for her husband. A man
standing near to me shot her in the back, and she fell dead. Being
ordered to gather up the children, I went a quarter of a mile to the
wagons; the wounded men had been killed before we got there; did
not see Lee put the children in the wagon; went to Hamlin's house.
The soldiers then dispersed. The company from Washington County
went south; the company from Cedar City went to Hamlin's. I had
my hands full with the children; seventeen of them, from two to seven
or eight years of age; two were wounded, and one died on the way.
[The witness then details the gathering and distribution of the property.] The draught animals, wagons, and clothing were taken to Cedar
City; fifty head of the emigrants' stock were branded with the church
brand (a cross). [He also describes the meeting of Lee in Salt Lake,
where he had been sent to report the massacre to Brigham Young.]
Witness and Charley Hopkins called upon Brigham; he directed witness to turn over the property to Lee. Brigham turned to witness
and said: 'What do you know about this affair? Keep it secret and
don't talk about it among yourselves.' Lee was present at this interview. Fifty head of cattle were driven to Salt Lake, and sold to
Hooper, formerly delegate to Congress, for boots and shoes." [Witness then tells how he was sent to the old lead mines at Vegas,
Arizona, with two others to get lead, and when he returned, the
property at Cedar City had been auctioned off.]
Judge Sutherland subjected the witness to a long and searching
cross-examination, but failed to shake his testimony in the slightest.
Joel White testified at great length as to the orders issued for calling
out the militia, which he understood to come from Col. Dame; of the
massacre and distribution of the property; of the seventeen little
children saved, and of afterwards seeing the Indian, deputed for that
purpose, cut the throat of the boy who was " big enough to remember
and talk about it." He insisted that he took no part in the massacre,
and only went with the militia because he feared death if he refused.
Klingensmith had admitted actual participation in the killing.
Mrs. Ann Eliza Hoge testified to what was done at both councils,
where the massacre was determined and where Lee made his report.
Also to hearing the boy say of an Indian: "He killed my pa-he's
got on my pa's clothes," and that this boy was taken away by John D.
Lee, and never seen again. Witness was a French Mormon; at the
time of the massacre the wife of an elder at Harmony. I afterwards
talked at great length with her, in Salt Lake City, and gained many
important particulars.




THE MORMON MURDERERS.


509


Thomas D. Willis told of a council Haight had with him and his
father as to the best way to kill the emigrants, and confirmed other
witnesses as to the goods distributed. John H. Willis, brother of
Thomas, told of driving the team which conveyed the children; and
confirmed many other points. William Matthews described the richness of the train; the orders to sell no corn to the emigrants; of the
circulation of the story that the emigrants had poisoned a spring, and
other matters. William Young gave more in detail the facts of the
massacre, where he was present, and confirmed previous testimony on
other points. Samuel Pollock told substantially the same story. John
Sherratt testified to the storing of the goods, including clothing from
the dead bodies, in the cellar of the tithing house at Cedar City, and
seeing it sold by Lee at auction. William Bradshaw told of sermons
preached to excite the people against the emigrants, and threats of
death to all who did not aid the Church in whatever was commanded.
Robert Kershaw told the same story; also as to the orders not to trade
with the emigrants. He wanted to sell them some vegetables and was
forbidden.  The bishops had employed Samuel Dodge as special
policeman to watch the train and see that no Mormon sold them any
thing. John Morgan traded them a small cheese for a bed-quilt, and
was "cut off" for it. This man's testimony was of more interest as
showing the rigid discipline maintained in the Church, and the danger
of disobedience, than as to the massacre. Many other witnesses confirmed the foregoing, and testified to facts I have set forth in the previous summary. All were severely cross-examined, but their testimony remained unshaken.
Five days had passed when the defense began. They first attempted
to prove the old slander, invented in 1859; to deceive Judge Cradlebaugh, that the emigrants had poisoned a spring near Corn Creek, and
then that they had poisoned the flesh of an ox and given it to the
Indians to eat; but broke down completely on both charges. On this
point Elisha Hoops testified:
"Lived in Beaver in 1857, and knew George A. Smith and Jesse N.
Smith, ex-Bishop Farnsworth, and other shining lights of the Mormon
Church. On September 27th of that year he accompanied the Smith
party as guard as far north as Fillmore; camped at Corn Creek, and
found the Arkansas emigrants encamped there, about 150 paces distant.
Some members of the company came and talked to the Smith party;
they inquired of George A. Smith where they could get grass and
water to recuperate their animals, who referred them to Jacob Hamlin, and he designated Mountain Meadows as the best grazing ground.




510


WESTERN WILDS.


An ox lay dead between the two camps, and just as witness' party was
about to start, he saw a little German doctor, who belonged to the
emigrant company, draw a two-edged dagger with a silver guardsuch as gentlemen carry-and make three thrusts into the ox. Next
he produced a small, half-ounce vial, filled with a light colored liquid,
which he poured into the knife-holes. The question had previously
been asked by these men whether the Indians would be likely to eat
the carcass, and some thought they would. Witness did not see the
train again. Ten or fifteen minutes after the German had poisoned
the ox, some Indians came up and dickered with him for it. They
finally gave him some buckskins, and then began skinning the ox.
Witness supposed the Indians wanted the hide to cut up into soles for
their moccasins. Don't know how long they were flaying the animal,
as witness' party was driving away at the time."
During noon recess, as it appears, some one suggested to this witness
that he had missed his mark in saying that the ox was poisoned just as
they started away, and that fifteen minutes afterwards the Indians came
and bought the ox (which they could have for nothing as soon as
the emigrants left), and then flayed it! Afternoon he tried to piece
out his testimony by saying that the hame-strap broke and they were
delayed to fix it. Mr. Baskin pressed him so closely on the crossexamination that he was completely tangled. The other witnesses for
the defense produced very little of consequence.
Meanwhile the country had been heard from. A roar of execration
had sounded from Maine to California, and Brigham felt the necessity
of being exonerated.   He filed a deposition, and Judge Sutherland
attempted to get it admitted on the trial, on the plea (sworn to in the
deposition) that Brigham's health forbade his making the journey.
Only a short time before he had gone to 'St. George, a hundred and
fifty miles further south than Beaver. It was not age and ill health,
but the dread of Mr. Baskin's cross-examination that kept him out of
the court-room. But his deposition was published in the papers, and
proved an extraordinary document.   Here is the material part of it:
Q. When did you first hear of the attack and destruction of this Arkansas company
at Mountain Meadows, in September, 1857?
A. I did not learn any thing of the attack or destruction of the Arkansas company
until some time after it had occurred, then only by floating rumors.
Q. Did John D. Lee report to you at any time after this massacre what had been done
at that massacre; and if so, what did you reply to him in reference thereto?
A. Within some two or three months after the massacre he called at my office and
had much to say with regard to the Indians, their being stirred up to anger and threatening the settlements of the whites, and then commenced giving an account of the




THE MORMON MURDERERS.


511,


massacre. I told him to.stop, as, from.what I had already learned by rumor, I did not
wish my feelings harrowed up with a recital of details.
Q. Did Philip Klingensmith call at your office with John D. Lee, at the time of Lee's
making his report; and did you at that time order him to turn over the stock to Lee,
and order them not to talk about the massacre?
A. No. He did not call with John D. Lee, and I have no recollection of his ever
speaking to me, nor I to him, concerning the massacre or any thing pertaining to the
property.
Q. Did you ever give any directions concerning the property taken from the emigrants at the Mountain Meadows massacre, or know any thing as to its disposition?
A. No. I never gave any directions concerning the property taken from the emigrants at the Mountain Meadows massacre; nor did I know any thing of that property
or its disposal, and I do not to this day, except from public rumor.
Q. Why did you not, as Governor, institute proceedings' forthwith to investigate the
massacre and bring the guilty authors to justice?
A. Because another Governor had been appointed by the President of the United
States, and was then on the way here to take my place, and I did not know how soon he
might arrive; and because the United States Judges were not in the Territory. Soon
after Governor Cumming arrived, I asked him to take Judge Cradlebaugh, who belonged
to the Southern District, with him, and I would accompany them with sufficient aid to
investigate the matter and bring the offenders to justice.
Q. Did you, about the 10th of September, 1857, receive a communication from Isaac
C. Haight, or any other person of Cedar City, concerning a company of emigrants, called
the Arkansas company?
A. I did receive a communication from Isaac C. Haight or John D. Lee, who was
then a farmer for the Indians.
Q. Iave you that communication?
A. I have not. I have made a diligent search for it, but can not find it.
Q. Did you answer this communication?
A. I did, to Isaac C. Haight, who was then the acting President at Cedar City.
Q. Will you state the substance of your letter to him?
A. Yes. It was to let this company of emigrants and all companies of emigrants
pass through the country unmolested, and to allay the angry feelings of the Indians as
much as possible.
(Signed)       BRIGHAM YOUNG.
Here was a Governor, Prophet, Indian Superintendent, and absolute
head of a theocracy, who only heard of a massacre " some two or three
months after it occurred," by "floating rumors," and refused to listen
to an account of it lest he might have his ' feelings harrowed up!!"
Too tender-hearted to do his sworn duty! And so ignorant of what
was going on that he heard " only rumors." Verily, the world has
been sadly mistaken about Brigham Young.




CHAPTER XXXII.


GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?
THE case went to the jury, and all Utah waited in deep suspense
for the verdict. Among Gentiles the general voice was;. "Brigham
can't afford to let him be convicted-the Church must stand by Lee."
The evidence was conclusive of guilt, but we all knew that Church
policy alone would dictate the verdict; and it was evident the jury
had been ("counseled." Agreeable to Western instincts, there was
much betting on the result, the odds largely against conviction. But
Hon. George C. Bates, the Church attorney, soon arrived at Salt
Lake City, and telegraphed to John W. Young, Brigham's "apostate
son," as he was then called, that conviction was agreed upon; and
John W. took all the bets offered.. He was in the Board of Trade
rooms at Chicago, while Johnnie Young, Brigham's nephew, went
about Salt Lake City doing the same. Then it was known that the
Church had taken the least of two evils, and resolved to convict.
But all parties were mistaken. And this from a miscalculation on
the part of the Church. It appears that just before the trial the Mormon leaders concluded that they could keep away the most important
witnesses; that the prosecution would therefore break down, and it
would be safe to acquit. So the Mormon jurymen were "{ counseled"
to that effect. But Baskin and Carey completely outgeneraled the
Church and its attorneys; the vigor and daring of the United States
marshals insured the attendance of the proper witnesses, and a far
worse case was proved than even the bitterest anti-Mormon had
looked for. It was then decided by the Church to convict; but it
was too late. Seven deptlity marshals had been sworn in to watch
the jury; and of the three Gentiles on the panel, each constituted himself a special detective to see that no hint from outside reached his
Mormon colleagues. Even their correspondence was withheld unless
they would consent to have it first read by the judge. Signals were
made to them in open court, but they failed to understand what was
wanted. They were in blissful ignorance of the storm of rage sweeping over the country, and its effect on their priestly masters, and so
obeyed their first instructions. They had all sworn they knew nothing
04     (512)




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTYP


513


of the case; but on reaching the jury room, they proceeded to controvert the testimony for the prosecution by facts within their own
knowledge. " The vote stood from first to last, nine for acquittal and
three for conviction. The majority first installed the Jack-Mormon,
J. C. Heister, in the chair, and then one by one delivered elaborate
Mormon sermons: against the prosecuting attorneys, against the
court and all Federal officials, against the emigrants, against the
United States, against all who were not of the Mormon Church or
its most subservient tools. It was perhaps the most curious and
irregular jury proceeding ever had in any civilized country. The
three Gentiles on the panel held their ground for two days, smiling
grimly on their foes, and willing to see the latter commit themselves;
__ --- ----- -- — '~~' A
~___22-~~~~ —_-: -— ~-.: ----~L- _. —_SALT LAKE CITY-1857.
then consented to a disagreement. Promptly, as if pulled by one
string, all the Mormon papers appeared with articles having a wonderful family resemblance, and claiming that the verdict was a complete vindication of the Church, and a "pointed rebuke to the prosecution!" And to cap the climax of absurdity, Captain John Codman, their Eastern apologist, rushed into the New York prints with
an effusive statement that "Gentile slanderers were at last silenced,
and President Brigham Young fully exonerated! "
One can scarcely say whether the Americans in Utah were pleased
or chagrined at the result of this trial. They knew that justice
would some day be done, and meanwhile the action of the Church
would rouse the indignation of the whole country. But even they
had underrated this effect. There was a storm of rage in the Rocky
33




514


WESTERN WILDS.


Mountains; the Pacific Coast papers bristled with denunciations of
Brigham and the leading Mormons. The staidest journals seemed to
grow wild. One advocated a reign of martial law till every murderer
in Utah was executed. Another called for the immediate arrest of
Brigham, on a bench warrant, before he could fly the country. And
still another complained that the civil law was too slow: "The
streets of Salt Lake should be ornamented with the heads.of the
Mormon leaders." Then came answering echoes from the East.
Nearly every influential paper in the country called for prompt justice. Utah was excited as I never saw it before. The six Mormon
papers literally bowed before the blast, and appeared afraid to say any
thing, or had nothing to say.  Beyond a few commonplaces about
"waiting for the facts," and deprecating "the mob spirit," they
attempted no defense. In the States were two journals which can
always be depended on to espouse the cause of the Mormons in every
emergency-the Omaha Herald and the Washington Capital. But
both remained silent over this affair, virtually admitting that the
worst was proved against the Mormons. Captain Codman, with a
faithful friendship that did him honor, came to the rescue of Brigham
in the columns of the New York Post; and the editor of that paper
mildly hinted that the Mountain Meadow massacre was " a feature of
the Mormon rebellion of 1857," and had perhaps been condoned by
Buchanan's proclamation of amnesty, made in 1858. Beyond these
no word of palliation was heard; the press and the country were
unanimous in the opinion that the Mormon theocracy was morally
responsible for this great crime, and that a solemn duty devolved
upon the government to see that full justice was done.
But of all the Mormons in Utah, the case of none excited such
horror and regret among the Gentiles as that of Hon. W. H. Hooper.
It is proved that he received forty head of the murdered emigrants'
cattle; and it is scarcely possible that he, a Mormon high in the confidence of the Church, could have been ignorant of the matter. And
yet he, through all his congressional career, again and again, and that
most bitterly, laid the whole affair on the Indians; and more than
once, in company with senators, he solemnly swore that no Mormon
had any thing to do with it. He even employed journalists to write
up the Mormon view of the case. And can it be possible that all
that time he knew it was a cruel lie? Can it be that he has taken the
money of the Government even while employing fraud and perjury to
defeat justice, and shield those who had murdered its citizens? If so,
this earth has no damnation deep enough for him. But among his




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTYf


515


Gentile friends there is still some hope. It is barely possible that he
may have been deceived; that while all other leading Mormons knew
the facts, he was kept in ignorance. From every part of Utah came
implorings for some explanation in his favor; and if it shall appear
that he acted innocently and ignorantly, ten thousand Gentiles will be
gratified.
A calm followed the storm, and Utah took a rest till the next
term of court. It was proposed by a few Mormons that Lee should
be brought to Salt Lake City and tried; but the proposition was so
readily favored by the prosecution that it was promptly withdrawn.
Fourteen months passed, and Lee came to his second trial in September, 1876. It excited far less attention in the East, for the
nation was then busy with national concerns. But it was evident,
almost from the start, that the Church had at last decided to sacrifice
Lee. The evidence, as on the former trial, was overwhelming, and
Daniel H. Wells, Brigham's right-hand man, was present all the time
to see that every thing went right. The witnesses for the defense had
forgotten all they ever knew; Mormons, for the prosecution, testified
with amazing fluency. Lee was doomed. The Church was present
in spirit, and by her representative, consenting unto his death.
W. W. Bishop, Esq., the prisoner's counsel, was completely taken by surprise when he saw that the Church was actually aiding the prosecution. It was so totally unlike what he had a right to expect. His
theory now is that the prosecuting attorney, or some one in authority, had a secret understanding with Brigham Young to the effect
that if Lee were convicted and executed, the matter would stop there,
and the main obstacle to the admission of Utah as a State be
removed. Mr. Bishop has a great deal to learn about the duplicity
and treachery of the Mormon leaders. Five years residence in
Utah would clear his vision considerably.
And now occurred one of those strange transformations for which
Utah is notorious. On the former trial the prosecution had sought
to show that Lee acted as a Mormon, inspired by some orders or
hints from the heads of the Church. Now Sumner Howard, Esq.,
U. S. District Attorney, emphatically disclaimed all intention to implicate the Church, and hinted that the conviction of Lee would be
the exoneration of Brigham. Mr. Bishop, for the defense, on the
other hand, made a fierce assault on the heads of the Church, for
their evident intention to sacrifice Lee. He said:
"I see a State government looming up in the distance.  I see a
future prospect for individuals, political and financial. I see a shliift



516


WESTERN WILDS.


ing of the responsibility for this crime upon John D. Lee, and I see
the Gentiles, who aid the shifting, riding into the United States
Senate."  Mr. Howard disclaimed any such bargain, but stated his
satisfaction at the fact that the jury was composed entirely of Mormons.  He told them that Mormon juries were now on trial, and
their verdict must decide whether their church was to stand before
the world convicted of shielding assassins. Despite his disclaimer, it
is generally believed in Utah that the Mormon authorities were led
to believe the death of Lee would strengthen them before Congress.
As strategy, this was a great success for the prosecution; whether it
was "professional," lawyers must decide. One thing, however, is
certain: it did not produce the effect desired by Brigham; the world
is more than ever convinced of his connivance at crime or concealment of crime.
My sometime friend, Jacob Hamlin, figured extensively on this
trial. Without a blush he succeeded in remembering a score of
things he had forgotten on former occasions; and gave, at great
length, Lee's statement to him, made soon after the tragedy.  Lee
told him in detail of the murder of the two girls who escaped the
general massacre; and the manner in which Hamlin recited Lee's account convinced some who heard it that another crime was comnitted before the girls were killed.
Hamlin testified that he had never before repeated Lee's words
except to George A. Smith and Brigham Young, and that Brigham
told him "to keep still about these things till the proper time came
to tell it all!"  I ask the Eastern reader to pause at this point, and
ponder this startling fact.  Here was Jacob Hamlin, a most reputable citizen of southern Utah, a man whom I know to be in many
respects high-toned and honorable, receiving the confession of a
double-dyed murderer, carrying it in his mind all these nineteen
years, and never going near a court or grand jury, never breathing it
to an officer, just because Brigham Young so commanded! And in the
spring of 1859, when Brigham made a great show of wanting the
matter investigated, Hamlin was with General W. H. Carleton and
other U. S. officials-gave them a circumstantial account of " this Indian massacre," assisted them to gather up the children, and could
not remember any thing whatever tending to criminate a white man.
At the mere request of Brigham Young this most excellent citizen,
whom I know by personal intercourse to be a pleasant gentleman, a
patriarch in his town, told lie on top of lie, and covered himself
fathoms deep with perjury to screen his brother Mormon.   And




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY


517


"when the proper time came," with sublime coolness he came into
court and told it all, still at the command of Brigham Young!
And yet there are lawyers in the East, and statesmen in Congress,
who will maintain that Brigham had no control in southern Utah in
1857; that the massacre was done against his wish; that he did not
know of it, in fact!
"Oh, judgment! thou art fled to.brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason."
Samuel Knight and Samuel McMurdy testified to seeing Lee kill
several persons; that he blew a woman's brains out, beat one man to
death with a gun, and shot others; then came to the wagons and shot
all the wounded men with a pistol. At this point in the testimony
Lee broke down, and when remanded to his. cell walked the floor a
long time, cursing the Mormon leaders who, he said, had betrayed
him. He knew, even before his attorney did, that the Church had
decided to give him up; he had suspected this at the start, and urged
his attorney to secure a few Gentiles on the jury, in the hope that
they might revolt against this conspiracy. But this had proved impossible. All the Gentiles called had heard or read of the case; the
Mormons called " had never heard of it, and had formed no opinion."
For "model jurors" they could beat New York City.      When the
argument of counsel began, the defense had no recourse but to
abuse the witnesses.  Mr. Bishop took the broad ground that all
those present at the massacre were equally guilty and not to be believed.
At noon of September 20th, Judge Boreman delivered his charge
to the jury; they retired, and at 3:30 P. M. returned into court with
this verdict:
BEAVER CITY, Sept. 20, 1876.
We, the jurors, duly sworn and impaneled to try the case wherein John D. Lee is indicted for murder, do find the said John D. Lee guilty of murder in the first degree.
A. M. FARNSWORTH, Foreman.
By order of the Court, the Marshal brought Lee to the bar. The
Court asked:
"John ID. Lee, have you any thing to say why the sentence of
death should not be pronounced against you in accordance with the
verdict of the jury? "
Lee: "I have not."
Court: '"You, John D. Lee, prisoner at the bar, have, by the verdict of a jury, been found guilty of murder in the first degree. The
proof was clear and positive. At the trial last year the evidences of




518


WESTERN WILDS.
WkSTERN WILDS.


guilt were plain, but three-fourths of the jury, from some cause, were
then for your acquittal. The testimony on the present trial is mainly
from witnesses who could not then be obtained. From some cause
this evidence is now unsealed, and the witnesses are found ready in
your case to tell what part you played in the great crime. They will
hereafter have opportunity of telling what others did to aid in plan-.ning and executing it.  The fact that the evidence was not brought
out on this trial to criminate some other leaders, does not show that
such evidence does not exist. * * * According to the evidence
on the former trial, the massacre seems to have been the result of a
vast conspiracy extending from Salt Lake City to the bloody field.
The emigrants were hounded all along the line of travel, and nowhere were the citizens permitted to give or sell them any thing to
sustain life in man or animal, though they were in great need
thereof.
"The men who actually participated in the deed are not the only
guilty parties. Although the evidence shows plainly that you were
a willing participant in the massacre; yet both trials taken together
show that others, and some high in authority, inaugurated and decided upon the wholesale slaughter of the emigrants. That slaughter
took place nineteen years ago.  From that time to the present term
of court there has been throughout the Territory a persistent and
determined opposition to any investigation of the massacre. * * *
But their efforts to smother and crush out investigation were found
to avail them no longer. It was impossible to longer delay when
the inside facts of the conspiracy should be brought out; and they
have suddenly changed their policy, and seem now to be consenting
to your death. *   *  *   The unoffending victims, though their
mouths are closed in this world, will meet you at the bar of Almighty God, where the secrets of all hearts shall be made known.
And the guilty can not avoid that tribunal. * * * In accordance
with the verdict of the jury, and the law, it becomes my duty to pass
the sentence of death upon you; and in doing this the statute requires
that you may have a choice, if you desire, of three different modes
of execution, to-wit: by hanging, by shooting, or by beheading.
If you have any choice or desire in this -respect, you can now express it."
Lee: " I prefer to be shot."
Court: "As you have made choice, and expressed it, that you be
executed by being shot, it follows that such shall be the judgment
of the Court. The judgment of the Court, therefore, is, that you be




GUILTy OR NOT GUILTY f


519


taken hence to a place of confinement within this Territory; that
you there be safely kept in confinement until Friday, the 26th day
of January, 1877; that between the hours of 10 o'clock A. M. and
3 o'clock P. M. of that day, you be taken from your place of confinement and in this district publicly shot until you are dead; and may
Almighty God have mercy on your soul!"
But an appeal was taken, and the Supreme Court of Utah suspended the execution. The case was heard in that court, and an able
opinion delivered by Justice Philip H. Emerson, fully sustaining the
court below, and concurred in by all the justices. The mandate directed the Second District Court to fix a new date for execution, and
Judge Boreman named Friday, March 23, 1877.          There was much
talk of an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, but
none was taken, though Congress has granted this.privilege in murder
cases to Utah alone of all the Territories. Still Lee did not give up
all hope.  There are mysterious hints of a secret understanding between him and the district attorney, by which the latter was to secure
a pardon or commutation in return for evidence that would convict
all the others guilty of complicity in the massacre. Lee's wife, Rachel,
shared his confinement to the last, and Lee worked steadily on his
confession.  But if there was any such agreement, it was set aside, and
the convicted man at last resigned all hope. He then wrote out a
full confession, and gave it to the district attorney; but the latter has
only. published such portions as would in no way interfere with his
plans for convicting others. A previous confession written by Lee,
and delivered to his attorney, W. W. Bishop, Esq., has also been published-the lawyer having agreed with Lee to sell the paper to the
press, take his fee therefrom, and pay over the remainder to Rachel.
In these confessions Lee at last tells nearly all the truth, still shielding himself, however, and denying any actual killing. I append the
most important sections:
My name is John Doyle Lee. I was born September 6, 1812, at Kaskaskia, Randolph
County, Illinois. My mother belonged to the Catholic Church, and I was christened in
the faith. My parents died while I was still a child, and my boyhood was one of trial
and hardship. I married Agatha Ann Woolsey in 1833, and moved to Fayette County,
Illinois, on Sucker Creek. There I became wealthy. In 1836 I became acquainted with
some traveling Mormon preachers. I bought, read, and believed the Book of Mormon.
I sold my property in Illinois, and moved to Far West; in Missouri, in 1837, where I -
joined the Mormon Church, and became intimately acquainted with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I
was subsequently initiated into the order of Danites at its first formation. The members of this order were solemnly sworn to obey all the orders of the priesthood of the
Mormon Cnur;h, to do any and all things as commanded. The "destroying angels"




520                         WESTERBN     WILDS..
of the Mormon Church were selected from this organization. I took an active part as a
Mormon soldier, as it was the recurring conflicts between the people and the Mormons
which made Jackson County, Missouri, historic ground. When the Mormons were expelled from Missouri, I was one of the first to settle at Nauvoo, Illinois, where I took an
active part in all that was done by the Church or city. I had charge of the construction of many public buildings there, and was the policeman and body-guard of Joseph
Smith at Nauvoo. After his death I held the same position to Brigham Young, who
succeeded Joseph Smith as Prophet, Priest, and Revelator in the Church. I was Recorder for the Quorum of Seventy, head clerk of the Church, and organized the priesthood in the Order of Seventy. I took all the degrees of the Endowment House, and
stood high in the priesthood. I traveled extensively throughout the United States as a
Mormon missionary, and acted as trader and financial agent of the Church. From the
death of Joseph Smith until the settlement at Salt Lake City, I was one of the locating
committee that selected sites for various towns and cities in Utah Territory. I held
many offices in the Territory, and was a member of the Mormon legislature, and was
probate judge of Washington County, Utah. Immediately after Joseph Smith received
the revelation concerning polygamy, I was informed of its doctrines by said Joseph Smith
and the Apostles. I believe in the doctrine, and have been sealed to eighteen women,
three of whom are sisters, and one was the mother of three of my wives. I was sealed
to this old woman for her soul's salvation. I was an honored man in the Church, flattered and regarded by Brigham Young and the Apostles, until 1868, when I was cut off
from the Church and selected as a scapegoat to suffer for and bear the sins of my people.
As a duty to myself and mankind I now confess all that I did at the Mountain Meadow Massacre, without animosity to any one, shielding none, and giving the facts as they
existed. Those with me at"that time were acting under orders from the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. The horrid deeds then committed were done as a duty
which we believed we owed to God and our Church. We were all sworn to secrecy before and after the massacre. The penalty for giving information concerning it was
death. As I am to suffer death for what I then did, and have been betrayed both by
those who gave orders to act and those who were the most active of my assistants, I
now give the world the true facts as they exist, and tell why the massacre was committed, and who were the active participants.
In the month of September, 1857, the company of emigrants, known as the "Arkansas
Company," arrived in Parowan, Iron County, Utah, on their way to California. At
Parowan young Aden, one of the company, saw and recognized one William Laney, a
'Mormon resident of Parowan. Aden and his father had rescued Laney from an antiMormon mob in Tennessee several years before, and saved his life. He (Laney), at the
time he was attacked by the mob, was a Mormon missionary in Tennessee. Laney was.
glad to see his friend and benefactor, and invited him to his house, and gavelhim some
garden sauce to take back to the camp with him.
The same evening it was reported to Bishop (Colonel) Dame that Laney had given
potatoes and onions to the man Aden, one of the emigrants. When the report was made
to Bishop Dame he raised his hand and crooked his little finger in a significant manner
to one Barney Carter, his brother-in-law, and one of the "Angels of Death." Carter,
without another word, walked out, went to Laney's house with a long picket in his
hand, called Laney out, and sruck him a heavy blow on the head, fracturing his skull,
and left him on the ground for dead. C. Y. Webb and Isaac Newman, President of the
" High Council," both told me that they saw Dame's maneuvers. James McGuffee, then
a resident of Parowan-but through oppression has been forced to leave there, and is
now a merchant in Pahranagat valley, near Pioche, Nevada-knows these facts.
About the last of August, 1857, some ten days before the Mountain Meadow Massa



GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?


521


cre, the company of emigrants passed through Cedar City. George A  Smith-then
First Councilor in the Church and Brigham Young's right-hand man ---came down from
Salt Lake City, preaching to the different settlements. I, at that time, was in Washington County, near where St. George now stands. He sent for me. I went to him, and
he asked me to take him to Cedar City by way of Fort Clara and Pinto settlements, as
he was on business, and must visit all the settlements. We started on our way up
through the cafion. We saw bands of Indians, and he (George A. Smith) remarked to
me that these Indians, with the advantage they had of the rocks, could use up a large
company of emigrants, or make it very hot for them. After pausing for a short time
he said to me, " Brother Lee, what do you think the brethren would do if a company
of emigrants should come down through here making threats? Do n't you thinl they
would pitch into them? " I replied that " they certainly would." This seemed to please
him, and he again said to me, "And you really think the brethren would pitch into
them?" "I certainly do," was my reply; "and you had better instruct Colonel Dame
and Haight to attend to it that the emigrants arc permitted to pass, if you want them to
pass unmolested." He continued: "I asked Isaac (meaning Haight) the same question,
and he answered me just as you do, and I expect the boys would pitch into them." I
again said to him that he had better say to Governor Young, that if he wants emigrant
companies to pass without molestation, that he must instruct Colonel Dame or Major
Iaight to that effect; for if they are not ordered otherwise, they will use them up by the
help of the Indians.
The confession then tells of the councils in which the destruction
of the emigrants was decreed; the gathering of the Mormon militia,
and the siege down to the time treachery was decided upon, and continues as follows:
The plan agreed upon there was to meet them with a flag of truce, tell them that the
Indians were determined on their destruction; that wefdare not oppose the Indians, for
we were at their mercy; that the best we could do for them (the emigrants) was to get
them and what few traps we could take in the wagons, to lay their arms in the bottom
of the wagon, and cover them up with bed-clothes, and start for the settlement as soon
as possible, and to trust themselves in our hands. The small children and wounded
were to go with the two wagons, the women to follow the wagons and the men next, the
troops to stand in readiness on the.east side of the road ready to receive them. Shirtz
and Nephi Johnson were to conceal the Indians in the brush and rocks till the company
was strung out on the road to a certain point, and at the watchword "Halt! do your
duty!" each man was to cover his victim and fire. Johnson and Shirtz were to rally
the Indians, and rush upon and dispatch the women and larger children.
It was further told the men that President Haight said that if we were united in carrying out the instructions, we would receive a " celestial reward." I said I was willing
to put up with a less reward, if I could be excused. " How can you do this without
shedding innocent blood?" Here I got another lampooning for my stubbornness and
disobedience to the priesthood. I was told that there was not a drop of innocent blood to
the whole company of emigrants, and was also referred to the Gentile nation who refused the
children of Israel passage through their country when Moses led them out of Egyptthat the Lord held that crime against them; and that when Israel was strong the
Lord commanded Joshua to slay the whole nation, men, women, and children.
"Have not these people done worse than that to us? Have they not threatened to
murder our leaders and Prophet? and have they not boasted of murdering our patriarchs
and prophets, Joseph and Hyrum? Now talk about shedding innocent blood!" They




522


WESTERN WILDS.


said I was a good, liberal, free-hearted man, but too much of this sympathy would be
always in the way; that every man now had to show his colors; that it was not safe to
have a Judas in camp. Then it was proposed that every man express himself; that if
there was a man who would not keep a close mouth, they wanted to know it then. This
gave me to understand what I might expect if I continued to oppose. Major Higbee
said: "Brother Lee is right. Let him take an expression of the people." I knew I
dare not refuse, so I had every man speak and express himself. All said they were
willing to carry out the counsel of their leaders; that the leaders had the Spirit of God,
and knew better what was right than they did.
The massacre is then related in detail down to the time when the
wounded men in the wagons were killed, after which the confession
continues:
At this moment I heard the scream of a child. I looked up and saw an Indian have
a little boy by the hair of his head, dragging him out of the hind end of the wagon, with
a knife in his hand, getting ready to cut his throat. I sprang for the Indian, with my
revolver in hand, and shouted to the top of my voice: "Arick, ooma, cot too sooet," (stop,
you fool.) The child was terror-stricken. His chin was bleeding. I supposed it was
the cut of a knife, but afterward learned that it was done on the wagon-box as the Indian yanked the boy down by the hair of the head. I had no sooner rescued this child,
than ahother Indian seized a little girl by the hair. I rescued her as soon as I could
speak; I told the Indians that they must not hurt the children-that I would die before
they should be hurt; that we would buy the children of them. Before this time the
Indians had rushed up around the wagon in quest of blood, and dispatched the two
runaway wounded men.
I got up, saw the children, and among the others the boy who was pulled by the hair
of his head out of the wagon by the Indian-and saved by me. That boy I took home
and kept home until Dr. FornOy, Government Agent, came to gather up the children
and take them East. He took the boy with the others. The boy's name was Fancher.
His father was captain of the train. He was taken East, and adopted by a man in Nebraska, named Richard Sloan. He remaiped East several years, and then returned to
Utah, and is now a convict in the Utah penitentiary, having been convicted the past
year for the crime of highway robbery. He is well known by the name of "Idaho
Bill," but his true name is William Fancher. His little sister was also taken East, and
is now the wife of a man working for the Union Pacific Railroad Company, near Green
River.
Some two weeks after the deed was done, Isaac C. Haight sent me to report to Governor Young in person. I asked him why he did not send a written report. He replied
that I could tell him more satisfactorily than he could write, and if I would stand up
and shoulder as much of the responsibility as I could conveniently, that it would be a
feather in my cap some day, and that I would get a celestial salvation, but the man
that shrunk from it now would go to hell. I went and did as I was commanded.
Brigham asked me if Isaac C. Haight had written a letter to him. I replied, not by
me; but he wished me to report in person. "All right," said Brigham. "Were you an
eye-witness?" "To the most of it," was my.reply. Then I proceeded and gave him a
full history of all, except that of my opposition. That I left out entirely. I told him
of the killing of the women and children, and the betraying of the company; that, I
told him, I was opposed to; but I did not say to him to what extent I was opposed to it,
only that I was opposed to shedding innocent blood. "Why," said he, "you differ from




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY


523


Isaac (Haight), for he said there was not a drop of innocent blood in the whole
company."
When I was through he said it was awful; that he cared nothing about the men, but
the women and children was what troubled him. I said: " President Young, you should
either release them from their obligation, or sustain them when they do what they have
entered into the most sacred obligations to do." He replied: "I will think over the
matter, and make it a subject of prayer, and you may come back in the morning and see
me." I did so. He said: "John, I feel first-rate. I asked the Lord, if it was all right
for the deed to be done, to take away the vision of the deed from my mind, and the Lord
did so, and I feel firstrate. It is all right. The only fear I have is of traitors." He
told me never to lisp it to any mortal being, not even to Brother Heber. President
Young has always treated me with the friendship of a father since, and has sealed
several women to me since, and has made my home his home when in that part of the
Territory-until danger has threatened him. This is a true statement, according to my
best recollection.
This statement I have made for publication after my death, and have agreed with a
friend to have the same published, with many facts pertaining to other matters connected
with the crimes of the Mormon people under the leadership of the priesthood, from a period
before the butchery of Nauvoo, to the present time, for the benefit of my family, and that
the world might know the black deeds that have marked the way of the Saints from the
organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to the period when a
weak and too pliable tool lays down his pen to face the executioner's guns for deeds
which he is not more guilty than others, who to-day are wearing the garments of the
priesthood, and living upon the "tithing" of a deluded and priest-ridden people. My
autobiography, if published, will open the eyes of the world to the monstrous deeds of
the leaders of the Mormon people, and will also place in the hands of the attorney for
the Government, the particulars of some of the most blood-curdling crimes that have
been committed in Utah, which, if properly followed up, will bring many down from
their high places in the Church to face offended justice upon the gallows. So mote
it be.
(Signed)                                    JOHN D. LEE.
The autobiography, of which Lee speaks, is for the present withheld,
for obvious reasons.     But when the confession was forwarded to the
New York Herald for publication, the proprietor telegraphed Brigham,
asking if he had any statement to make in connection with the publication.   Brigham   replied as follows:
ST. GEORGE, UTAH, March 22.
James Gordon Bennett, New York:-Yours just received. If Lee has made a statement'
in his confession implicating me, as charged in your Jelegraph of the 21st inst., it is utterly false. My course of life is too well known by thousands of honorable men for
them to believe for one moment such accusations.
(Signed)                                     BRIGHAM' YOUNG.
Only that and nothing more. And straightway all the Mormon
papers of Utah, and all of Brigham's apologists in the East, cried out
that the Prophet was completely exonerated; that no one would take
the word of a murderer like Lee against so good a man as Brigham.
How easily are people deceived, if they ardently wish to be.




524


WESTERN WILDS.


The last day drew near, and United States Marshal, William Nelson,
with an eye to poetical justice, selected Mountain Meadows as the
scene of execution. Judge Boreman did not approve of this, thinking
it savored of revenge and spectacular display; he would have preferred
the execution should take place at Beaver, where the court was held.
But few officials and press representatives knew of this selection
till after the escort had left Beaver. Several reporters were present.
As his last hour drew near, Lee became very cheerful and communicative. The execution ground was about a hundred yards east of the
monument, which is now but a mass of rocks. Lee was attended by
Rev. Mr. Stokes, to whom he finally confessed that he killed five of
the emigrants with his own hands. This was his first and last confession of actual murder. The shooting squad of five men was detailed
from the guard of soldiers who had escorted the party from Camp
Cameron. They iv'ere armed with needle-guns, and stood no more
than forty feet from the coffin, on which sat the condemned.     At 10:30
A. M., Marshal Nelson read the death-warrant, and asked Lee if he
had any thing to say. Mr. Fennemore, an artist, had meanwhile arranged his material for taking a photograph of the scene. Lee said:
" I want to speak to that man."
Fennemore replied: "In a second, Mr. Lee."
Lee: "' I want to ask you a favor. I want you to furnish my three
wives each a copy of my photograph-a copy of the same to Rachel
A.; Sarah C., and Emma B."
Fennemore (in a low tone): "I will."
Marshal Nelson (aloud): " He says he will do it, Mr. Lee."
Lee (in a somewhat pleading tone): "'Please forward them-you
will?"
Lee then stood up and said in calm and measured tones:.
I, have but little to say this morning. Of course I feel that I am upon the brink of
eternity, and the solemnities of eternity should rest upon my mind at the present. I
have made out, or endeavored to do so, a manuscript and an abridged history of my
life. This is to be published, sir. I have given my views and feelings with regard to
all these things. I feel resigned to my fate. I feel as calm as a summer morning. I
have done nothing designedly wrong. My conscience is clear before God and man, and
I am ready to meet my Redeemer. This it is that places me on this field. I am not an
infidel. I have not denied God or His mercy. I am a strong believer in these things.
The most I regret is parting with my family. Many of them are unprotected, and will
be left fatherless. When I speak of those little ones they touch a tender chord within
me. (Here Lee's voike faltered perceptibly.) I have done nothing designedly wrong in
this affair. I used my utmost endeavors to save this people. I would have given
worlds, were it at my command, to have avoided that calamity. But I could not. I am
sacrificed to satisfy feelings, and I am used to gratify parties, but I am ready to die. I
have no fear. Death has no terror. No particle of mercy have I asked of the court or




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?


525


officials to spare my life. I do not fear death. I shall never go to a worse place than
the one I am now in. I have said it to my family, and I will say it to-day, that the
Government of the United States sacrifices its best friend, and that is saying a great deal,
but it is true. I am a true believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do not believe
every thing that is now practiced and taught by Brigham Young. I do not agree with
him. I believe he is leading the people astray; but I believe in the gospel as it
was taught in its purity by Joseph Smith in former days. I have my reasons for saying this. I used to make this man's will my pleasure, and did so for thirty years. See
how and what I have come to this day. I have been sacrificed in a cowardly and dastardly manner.
There are thousands of people in the Church, honorable, good-hearted, that I cherish
in my heart. I regret to leave my family. They are near and dear to me. These are
things to rouse my sympathy. I declare I did nothing wrong designedly in this unfortunate affair. I did every thing in my power to save all the emigrants, but I am the one
that must suffer. Having said this, I feel resigned. I ask the Lord my God to extend
his mercy to me, and receive my spirit. My labors are done.
EXECUTION OF JOHN D. LEE.
Having thus spoken he sat down on his coffin.
The minister offered a fervent prayer. The spectators were ordered
to fall back.   Marshal Nelson gave command:
"Make ready!      Aim!     Fire!"
The five rifles cracked simultaneously, and Lee fell back          dead,
without a struggle. Five balls had passed through him in the immediate vicinity of the heart. Either alone would have caused instant
death. His countenance was perfectly placid; his lips parted to something very near a smile.




WESTERN WILDS.


Thus died John Doyle Lee, a fanatic and a sensualist, a devotee
and a murderer, a kind father, a pleasant host, a hospitable gentleman
and a remorseless bigot. The same qualities which, with proper education and surroundings, would have made him an energetic, active
and valuable citizen of a Christian community, in Mormonism made
him a polygamist antd a murderer. Doubtless there was a time in his
early life when the weight of a hair either way would have determined
the course of his career-as the drop falling on one side of a Minnesota roof may flow down to the sunny gulf, on the other side to the
frozen ocean.  The accident of an hour turned his life into the channels of Mormonism; thence his way was steadily downward, and the
perversion of those forces which would have made him honored in Illinois, consigned him to infamous remembrance in Utah.  So may all
who are conscious of unregulated passion look upon him as the pious
bishop did upon the hardened convict, "There go I, but for the
grace of God."
It only remains to inquire into the probable, or possible, fate of his
companions in crime, and the proof of Brigham Young's complicity.
Of those indicted, only George Adair and Elliott Wilden are in custody, both minor characters in the tragedy, though other participants
testified on the trial. But the really guilty, such as Isaac Haight,
John M. Higbee and William C. Stewart-the men who planned and
carried the matter through exultingly-are in hiding in the Indian
country. For a long time they lived in a mountain fastness of southeastern Utah, and Hon. G. C. Bates, their attorney, visited and conversed with them in their chosen stronghold. He gave me a dramatic account of his experience there; of his going in at night and returning the next night, by a way so devious'that none but Indians or
the most accomplished scouts could find it.  But even that place did
not make them feel safe; and since the Mormons extended their southern settlements into New Mexico and Arizona, the murderers have retreated there. The community still shields them, but, as time passes,
there is a growing number of Mormons who would like to see justice done. The United States Government now has one duty to perform: to offer a moderate reward for their capture, or guarantee the
expense. Let this be done, and Marshal William Stokes will pick
his assistants and have those assassins in the Beaver jail within two
months.
Marshal Stokes, to whom Utah and the cause of justice are so
greatly indebted, deserves more than a passing notice.  A native of
New York, but reared in Wisconsin, he is now thirty-three years of




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?


627


age, in the very prime of mental and physical vigor. He served four
years in Company " D," of the Eighth Wisconsin, and was in twentyfive battles and skirmishes, including the battle of Corinth and assault
on Vicksburg. With a posse of but five men he executed the skillful
movement ending in the capture of Lee; and if our somewhat too
cautious Congress will but vote to pay the expense, he will capture
the others.
Is Brigham Young guilty? To me the evidence seems overwhelming that he was accessory after the fact-not quite conclusive that he
ordered the massacre.  But there is a fearful array of evidence, and
steadily accumulating, to that effect, though much of it is moral and
inferential rather than direct.  Its nature may be judged from one
fact: the longer a Gentile lives in Utah the more he is convinced of
Brigham's guilt, for he sees more and more that no such action would
have been taken by those southern Mormons unless they had been
certain of Brigham's approval.  The empire that man had obtained
over Utah in 1857 and succeeding years, has never been exceeded on
earth; it is something Americans can never hope to understand until
they have lived years in Utah. As Prophet, he held the " keys of
the kingdom," and all Mormons believed that none could enter there
without his voucher. As Priest, he alone had authority to " seal " and
divorce; whether for time or eternity. As Seer, he literally directed
every movement of the community. As Revelator, they regarded his
words as the very oracles of God. As First President, he was offiia]
head of all orders of the priesthood.  He was and is officially styled
" Prophet, Priest, Seer and Revelator, First President and Trustee-inTrust of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."  In the
last capacity he had control of all the property concerns of Utah.
Every thing was done and every body directed by priestly " counsel."
No move of any importance was entered upon without his consent;
no lay member of his own motion ever ventured upon any new enterprise. Brigham must be consulted if he would change his town or
residence, his associations or his business, go abroad or remain at
home, buy a farm or take another wife. Nor is this all. Besides being their spiritual head and guide, he. was military commander over
Dame, Haight and Lee. If there is any power possible on this earth
which he did not have, many years search have failed to show it. Is
it credible that, under such circumstances, such a momentous affair
could take place without his consent? Scores of times have I heard
Brigham speak of the power he exercised over "this people."  It has
been his boast for thirty years that the Saints would do nothing against




528


WESTERN WILDS.


his wish. We must judge him by his own utterances and those of his
nearest friends.
But there are direct evidences.  First: His sermon that if emigrants tried to cross the Territory he would "turn the Indians loose
on them."  Second: His admitted knowledge of the affair soon after
it occurred, and failure to denounce or seek to have the guilty punished. Third: His complete silence thereon in his next report as Indian Agent.  Fourth: His persistent falsehood for fifteen years afterwards in denying that the whites had any thing to do with it. Fifth:
His continued attempts to deceive all who made inquiry into the matter, and a score of other facts already mentioned. Collateral to the
main issue, there are other crimes of which Brigham is undoubtedly
guilty. The public files show that the year after the massacre he wrote
to Indian Commissioner Denver charging the crime upon the Indians-this in accordance with the arrangement made with the murderers, of which Lee speaks-and that he actually charged the Government for the material taken from the murdered emigrants and given
to the Indians!  Here is a clear case of perjury, proved by documentary evidence.  And for this also, if an honest jury can be found
in Utah, Brigham will be indicted. Nor is this all. In 1864 a member of the Indian Committee visited Utah, and to him Brigham made
complaint that the Mormons had not been paid for their expenses in
the late Indian wars.  The official gave as a reason that charges
ag nst them  were on file in connection with, Mountain Meadows.
Thin Brigham called high heaven to witness that the Saints had nothing to do with that massacre-" it was all the work of Indians."  As
late as 1869, the Deseret News, Brigham Young's official organ, contained an article written by Apostle George Q. Cannon, present Delegate in Congress from Utah, bitterly denying that any Mormon was
engaged.  Thus the Mormon authorities went on year after year
swearing to lies and publishing lies about Mountain Meadows, when,
according to all the evidence on the trial, they knew the facts then as
well as we know them now! What rational explanation can be
given of such crookedness, except that they had some sort of guilty
connection with the actual participants?
I have but touched upon the mass of evidence.  Brigham Young
has many apologists in the East, but among them all I have heard no
attempt at explanation of these things.  There is one man to whose
life-long friendship the Mormons are more indebted for the immunity
they enjoy than to any other one agency. Colonel (since General)
Thomas L. Kane, a gentleman of high character, accompanied them


*




GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?


529


in their journey from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake; was the guest of
Brigham Young; acted as their mediator in 1858, and has been their
apologist to the Government ever since. He first saw them in their
extreme misery, after their expulsion from Nauvoo, and his sympathies were powerfully excited in their behalf.  He gave his views of
them in a fascinating lecture, delivered before the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, March 26, 1850, and that lecture has probably covered more crimes and done more harm than any ever delivered in
America. Assuredly, Colonel Kane was benevolent and sympathetic;
but it is equally certain that his sympathy overbalanced his judgment.
The value of his testimony may be judged fom a few facts. He
gave his solemn assurance that the Saints were a law-abiding people;
that they were rigid moralists in all that pertained to the relations of
the sexes; that all the charges made against them, including polygamy,
were false and scandalous, and made with a view of getting their property. At the very time these words were written, and when Colonel
Kane was a guest in his tent, Brigham was the husband of four wives!
I am personally acquainted with dozens of men and women who were
born in polygamy at the very time Colonel Kane was with the Saints,
proving that polygamy had no existence! The Saints were denying
the practice then; they now avow its existence since 1843, and laugh
at the Gentiles for having been deceived.  Between 1843 and 1852
they put on record fourteen sworn or printed denials of the existence
of polygamy; since 1852 they have denied their own denials, and now
claim that polygamy was an established institution among them three
years before they left Illinois. Colonel Kane speaks as if it were
little short of blasphemy to doubt the high character of Mormon
women; and in the postscript to the second edition he insists that the
Mormons, as he knew them, had " a general correctness of deportment
and purity of character above the average of ordinary communities."
And yet in that same camp were men having mother and daughters as
{Cwives;" one woman who had left her husband in Boston to follow
Brigham, and another who had got a divorce from Dr. Seely, of
Nauvoo, to become Brigham's "second!"  Oscar Young, oldest son
of Brigham's third or -fourth "wife," was born near the Missouri
River about the time Colonel Kane was reporting to the President
that no polygamy existed among the Saints; and the perpetrator now
acknowledges four murders committed near there, while the Colonel
was indorsing the law-abiding Mormons! A little further on the
Colonel recites with amazement that gulls were unknown in Utah, till
the Mormons needed them to eat the crickets which were devouring
34




530


WESTERN WILDS.


*
their crops! And this, when every explorer for a century past has
told of the Salt Lake gulls, which are certainly as much indigenous
to the Great Basin as the blackbird is to Ohio! There remains but
one question in my mind: Could a man of Colonel Kane's acumen
be so grossly deceived, or was there some other reason?
But a little later Colonel Kane accidentally states a very important
fact. Having endeavored to show that the Mormons in Illinois were
sadly belied by their neighbors, who wanted to drive them away and
get their property, he adds: " When they left Nauvoo all their fairweather friends forsook them. Priests and elders, scribes and preachers, deserted by whole councils at a time; each talented knave, of
whose craft they had been victims, finding his own pretext for abandoning them, without surrendering the money-bag of which he was
the holder."  So it appears there were " talented knaves" in the
Church while it was at Nauvoo; there were thieves who ran off with
"c money-bags," and "fair-weather friends" who used the Mormons.
And yet while these people were in the Church, stealing from Gentiles
and laying it to Saints, and stealing from Saints and laying it to Gentiles, Colonel Kane can find no reason for outside hostility to Nauvoo,
except that the Gentiles wanted their property.  He proves that
nearly half the Nauvoo community was composed of adventurers from
all parts of the country, "talented knaves" who proved to be thieves,
and then maintains that the Illinois Gentiles were responsible for all
the troubles there! Verily, benevolence is a grand sentiment; but it
may be overdone.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.
IT is not my intention to sermonize on the moral and social anomaly
of Utah, the misery it brings to women,/or its illegality under our
laws. We are away beyond that. Every man who knows enough to
read this book knows that polygamy is not the social system for white
people; that it can only be permanent among the inferior races, and
that no man or woman of refined feelings can find happiness in it.
It is idle to argue that. But I wish to treat of one feature strangely
misunderstood in the East: the political economy of polygamy.
Many appear to think there is great progress in Utah; that its institutions, though morally wrong, lead to the accumulation of wealth
and to physical comfort. It seems to be conceded by some writers
that in one part of the world a people may be Asiatic in social and
religious canons, and Saxon in energy and intellect; at the same time
going forward in wealth and culture, and backward in intellectual and
moral discernment. If this were true as applied to Utah-that is, if
its people progressed faster than, or as fast as, those of other communities-it would be a case calling loudly for investigation by all the
philosophers of the world; for it would be an exception to all rules,
and a flat contradiction of all accepted theories. I offer a few facts to
show that in this matter science, and the popular prejudice, if you
choose to call it such, are right, and the Mormon apologists wrong.
First: In the United States a polygamous community can not get
rich; it must steadily fall behind a monogamous community in
material things. For polygamy tends, first, to the multiplication of
non-producers in a ratio-unnaturally great as compared to the producers. The political economist knows that the surplus year by year
accumulated in the United States rarely exceeds three per cent. This,
funded and in turn made productive, measures the general increase of
wealth. Suppose now some factor introduced which should consume
this three per cent. of increase. Then the people would not accumulate a surplus, nor would wealth increase as fast as population. Polygamy has just that effect, there being a larger number of children
born in proportion to the able-bodied men. As these children grow
(531)




532


WESTERN WILDS.


towards maturity, there would be a tendency for the evil to correct
itself; but, under ordinary circumstances, forty per cent. of the race
die before reaching the age of self-support. So of this increase beyond
monogamic rates, all is a present loss, and forty per cent. an absolute
loss. But this is not the worst. The ratio of consumers to producers
must in any case vastly increase before any of the young become selfsupporting. Hence a much smaller surplus, a smaller ratio to each
of what sustains and cheers life, and less to bestow upon the weaker,
who have extra needs; consequently a stronger pressure by the whole
community on the means of subsistence, a sharper struggle for existence, and a considerably greater mortality among the feeble children.
This in turn increases the dead loss set forth above; and thus polygamy causes the loss beyond recovery of a part of the productive energy
of a people appreciably greater than is lost in monogamy. This it is,
doubtless, which causes much of that large infant mortality in Utah,
which so many have noted, and which has often been mistakenly
attributed to the purely physiological effects of polygamy. It is not
that children are born with weaker constitutions, but that too many
of them are born for the productive strength of the community to
carry.
This position will be best appreciated by a comparison with any
locality in the Central West-say, a rural region in Ohio. There
about one-fifth of the whole community are producers. One-half are
children, one-half the remainder women (whom political economy does
not consider as producers), and a small proportion infirm and aged.
Given freedom, monogamy, and natural conditions, this proportion
will maintain itself with almost perfect constancy. There will always
be a certain proportion of unmarried women. Families will average
four or five children each, and the annual increase will be such as the
productive capacity of the commonwealth can carry, and leave a slight
surplus to add to its funded wealth.
Now, introduce polygamy, apportion the single women, and possibly import a few more. Give every fifth man two wives and two sets
of children, every tenth man three, and every fiftieth man from four
to twenty-this is about the condition in Utah-and what then?  In
ten years, instead of one-fifth only one-sixth or seventh of the whole
population will be producers; and the number of the helpless will be
greater than the aggregate strength of the community can provide a
proper surplus for. Inevitably, then, the whole population will press
harder on the means of subsistence, there will be less abundant nourishment, and a weakening of vitality among the poorest, and, in no




SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


533


long time, a marked increase of mortality among the children thus
imperfectly nourished; for thus does inexorable Nature restore the
balance, with a stern justice untemapered by mercy. That Utafi polygamy causes more children to be born is unquestioned; that many
more of them die than would in monogamy, is equally unquestioned.
The proof is a simple matter of record, which any man can verify for
himself by looking at the Salt Lake reports. And as to permanent
increase of population from native births alone, compare Utah and
Oregon; or Germans with Turks, Russians with Persians, or Saxons
with Hindoos. Here is the natural rhythm: polygamy, as it leaves
few single women, results in a vast increase of children; this increase
adds greatly to the burdens of the able-bodied men; there is, therefore, less surplus, more poverty and a closer pressure on the means of
subsistence; and this greater pressure results in a vast increase in the
number of deaths, more than enough to overbalance the additional
births. Of course the weakest usually die first, a clear majority of
the weakest always being children. But this introduces another evil:
an increase of the normal death-rate among children naturally leads
to endemic disease, and that in turn affects even Gentile children, and
others not regularly affected by the evils incident to polygamy.
At this point a side issue presents itself, which it may be well to
consider. My observation in Utah, and comparison with Eastern
communities, convince me that there is a certain normal rate of
increase, beyond which it is scarcely possible for an Anglo-Saxon community to go, or, if possible, very undesirable-I mean, of course,
natural increase, immigration being left out of the account. Settle a
new country with nearly equal numbers of the sexes, and the population will increase very rapidly as long as the unappropriated wealth
of Nature continues; it will even double, from natural causes alone,
every twenty-five years, until most of the land is occupied. Then a
noticeable decline in the rate of increase will ensue; and such rate
will decrease with almost constant regularity as the population
increases. It will be manifest in three ways: people will marry later
in life, successively larger numbers will remain unmarried, and the
average number of children to each family will be less. The large
number of unmarried women in Massachusetts, the considerably
smaller number in Indiana, and the very small number in California,
are thus seen to be legitimate results of the relative ages of those
communities. Of course, new inventions, enabling each producer to
get more of the necessaries of life from the same amount of labor,
will have a similar effect to that of unappropriated natural wealth;




534


WESTERN WILDS.


and this enables some of the oldest communities to maintain a slight
increase. But eventually all advancing communities must reach a
state'of social equilibrium, in which a very considerable part of the
population will remain unmarried.
Is it possible to change any part of this by artificial methods, such
as law or preaching, to increase the number of marriages? I think
not. And, if it were possible, no matter on what grounds of morality
or expediency urged, I firmly believe it would result in a decrease of
the average happiness, and ultimately in a social degeneracy. Those
philanthropists who lament with such frequency the relative decrease
in marriages, may justly rest for a season from their jeremiads. It is
not the extravagance of women, the selfishness of men, nor yet the
ambition of parents and the dissipation of contemporaneous society,
that causes the decline. A decided majority of those men who remain
single till late in life, or permanently, are among the most prudent
and econolical, often carrying both qualities to an extreme. " Stingy
old bachelor" has passed into a proverb. The single man who follows some legitimate business is filling his place in an old community as well as the married man. He adds one to the producers and
none to the consumers. From this evil, if it is an evil, there can be
no artificial remedy in an old society; it is to be borne as a necessary
consequence of the constitution of Nature, and alleviated only by
each individual's mental cultivation.
To the natural tendency of the law above outlined, there is in
Utah one powerful corrective: the Gentile, or non-Mormon population. In it there are three or four men to one woman. In the
orthodox Mormon element there are, perhaps, six women to five men,
a sufficient excess of women to allow polygamy on a small scale;
while among the young, or "Hickory Mormons," there are about as
many men as women. As there are some 12,000 Gentile men, and
probably not more than 3,000 Gentile women, it results that there
are more males than females in Utah. The census of 1870 showed a
male excess of 2,056. It must be twice or three times as great now,
as over half the Gentiles have come in since 1870. And here again
is seen the operation of the economic principle: these Gentiles have,
on the average, each twice or three times as much property as Mormons. But having given the general law by which polygamy tends
to poverty, I cite a few cases within my knowledge, assuring the
reader that they are men well known to old residents:
A has five wives, children by each, and a civil position which
yields him $200 per month. In a monogamous community a perma



535'


SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


nent position of that kind would enable a man of business ability to
accumulate wealth. To A with his five wives it is only what $40 per
month would be to a man with one wife. Despite the great advance
in value of his real estate, he is now on the verge of bankruptcy, and
unable to properly care for his families.
B is a man of uncommonly fine business abilities, and would anyStates have
long since                     F — -
been a mill-                ___
ionaire    -.  t i
has had five
wives, andINING TOWN.
reared twenty
children, besides having
lost some by
ties, a   with good salaries and fin histhe early
days, when the Church rtled every thing, the Mormon Legislature
life (so hee
tells me) he
has had a good
start; now he
is practicallv without
means, the: ' _;
rent of his _i s:
real estate:i..
being   conNEW MINING TOWN.
sumied in the
payment of debts incurred in caring for.his family. *For years at a
time he was never without one or more children sick, and has been
literally courpelled to repudiate one of his wives, who is supported by
her son. Two others have died, and by the most heroic exertions he
is barely able to provide for the other two and their seven children, who are still too young to assist.
C holds a very high position in the Mormon Church,'and two civil
offices, all with good salaries and fine opportunities. In the early
days, when the Church ruled every thing, the Mormon Legislature
made large grants to him of pasture-lands, timber-lands, and water
privileges, to all of which he enjoyed the exclusive right for twenty


It/




p


536                   WESTERN WILDS.
years. He has had six or seven wives, and children in proportion.
Of several fine pieces of property he owns, most are mortgaged to
their full value, and he is often cruelly embarrassed for money. With
such opportunities he should now have been ready to retire with a
fortune.
D is an apostle, with five wives and a good family to each. Having always beel more a missionary than a trader, he is now actually
an object of charity. It is openly charged, and not very strenuously
denied, that one of his wives died of want; all the others either support themselves or are supported by their children, the old gentleman
not being able to support even one family. So runs the list. Even
Brigham Young, with all his opportunities, can not be considered very
wealthy. He has repeatedly sworn in his entire property at less than
half a million, and in his "answer" to the suit of Ann Eliza he put
it at $600,000. I should not call that great wealth for a man with a
hundred and twenty children, grandchildren, and sons-in-law hanging
on his financial skirts. The assessed wealth of Utah does not exceed
$30,000,000, of which it is known that the Gentile minority owns
nearly one-half. This would leave the 90,000 Mormons no more than
$160 each, a lower average, I believe, than in any other part of the
United States. The question might well be raised in Congress,
whether polygamy did not bring its own punishment to the men; and,
if their case only was to be considered, we might appropriately let
it alone. An old lawyer, who attends to much of their business, gives
me his opinion that in ten years nearly all the leading Mormons will
be bankrupt.
Another peculiar effect of polygamy I advance, with the suggestion that it may be due somewhat to other causes. As families increase so rapidly in size, amounting in some instances within my
knowledge to fifty children of one man, there must be a vast increase
in the number of deaths; the father then must suffer an amount of
affliction terrible to contemplate, or undergo a progressive hardening
of the sensibilities more to be deplored, even down to the point where
the death of offspring ceases to afflict. One bishop, for instance, has
thirty-tWo children living and twenty dead. Another has seventeen
children buried in one row-the longest grave not over four feet!
Can such men "afford" to mourn the death of a child? Let the
cause be what it may, one fact is universally conceded: no people in
AmericA regard death so little, especially the death of young children.
They speak of this as a happy effect of their faith: "Death is but a
step to a higher sphere." But I apprehend a lively religious faith,




SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


537


even to the point of belief that an infant is in paradise, does not have
that effect.
The third effect of polygamy to be noted, is a habitual concealment
of the feelings, and with it a tendency to deceit. It is the boast of
their leaders, and admitted by all visitors, that no people in the world
conceal their thoughts so well as the Mormons. Your host may be
torn by internal torments, but you will sit at his table many a day
ere you discover it. No man who has two women to please can tell
either his real thoughts. No woman who knows her husband spends
half his time with another woman dare give way to her real feelings,
if she wishes to retain any of his affection. Deceit is a habit that
easily spreads from one thing to many, and the general effects of this
system must be evil. Sound physiology would say, that if the mother
was in such a mood through all the months of ante-natal growth, it
must affect the offspring. At any rate two facts are certain: children
in Utah are affected by something of this sort; and the polygamous
nations are universally more deceitful in their social relations than the
monogamous. And this, in turn, adds to the first-named evil, because
it tends to the dissipation of social energy. Let us see how this would
naturally operate.
The father to more than one family can not possibly be a father to
either. No man can duplicate himself; and he who begins by having
three families and three homes, ends by having none. To this must
be added the constant fear, of late years in Utah, of interference by
the Government; and thus has been added a new and fearful element
of uncertainty to the affairs of life. One result has been to engender
suspicion, and a general lack of the monogamic feeling of fixedness;
and these in turn prevent large organizations for business. Whatever
be the true theory, as things are now, it must be admitted that the
family is the cement of the civil structure-the unit, so to speak, from
which are successively built up the school-district, township, county,
State, and Nation; and that without the family unit the higher forms
could not be evolved. Whatever, then, introduces an element of uncertainty into the family, weakens social cohesion and lessens the
ability for organization. Accordingly, we see that no polygamous
people ever established a republic, or even a remote approach to one;
and that in Utah every kind of organization, for business or politics,
is headed and managed by the priesthood. Without them it could not
have been organized at all. Social cohesion is the one indispensable
element in a republic. That a people may practice self-government it
is necessary than an overwhelming majority should be able to trust




538


WESTERN WILDS.


each other, transact business and regulate their conduct, without any
government at all. This social cohesion is certainly weaker among a
polygamous people, and must in some way be supplemented; accordingly, theocracy is their natural form of government, and with it
springs up a paternalism which aims to take care of the affairs of
every body.
The result of these forces working together gives us the clew to the
whole history of Utah. For twenty years the priesthood was absolute,
spiritually and temporally; the Church directed every thing and governed every body; every detail of private life was regulated by
("counsel;" every public act of the citizen was the subject of some
law. Inside the Church proper were three organized governments:
the ecclesiastical, the civil, and the financial and industrial. The civil
government of the Territory, under the organic act of Utah, passed by
Congress, September 9, 1850, was scarcely known, except as a convenience by which the Church carried out decrees previously agreed
upon in the School of the Prophets. The incumbents of the various
offices, made elective by the congressional act, were first appointed by
the Church; the Mormon people then cast a unanimous vote for them
under the supervision of the priesthood, every voter's ballot being put
on record.  Only two instances are known to have occurred of an
attelmpt at political reform. In one of the southern districts some
young Mormons nominated a candidate not on the Church ticket, and
elected him to the Legislature. Reaching the city he was promptly
cited before the High Council, as promptly resigned, and the Church
nominee was declared elected.  A few dissenters in the Thirteenth
Ward of Salt Lake City combinod with non-Mormons and elected
Bishop Woolley to the City Council. He was cited before the School
of the Prophets, and subjected to savage abuse by Brigham Young,
humbly apologized for his presumption, and resigned; and the regular
nominee took the seat. It was the last attempt of that nature inside
the Church.
The results of this system, and the more bloody devices to prevent
secession, were such that all traces of mental independence vanished.
That class of thinkers who maintain that government should take
care of the people's business, finances, and morals, by prohibitory enactments as to foreign goods and native whisky, would have been
amazed to see how thoroughly Utah had carried out this policy. All
the business of the people was regulated by thle rulers; paper-money
wvas issued by the city under the direction of the Church; nobody
could.sell liquor without the consent of Brigham; and the distance




SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


539


from markets created a protective tariff 200 per cent. heavier than
a Congress of Greeleys and Careys would have dared to impose.
Stranger still, the system was, as to the objects aimed at, a perfect
success: a whole community voluntarily abdicated each man his personal sovereignty, and were taken care of by their priestly advisers
with a cruel kindness which the ordinary American need not hope to
comprehend. Even the desire for independence died out. An original thought came to be regarded as a sin, to be repented of, confessed,
and put away. Each successive and abortive attempt at something better resulted in making the population still more submissive. Where
vigorous preaching had been necessary in 1850, a wave of the hand
was sufficient in 1860; where argument was still employed in 1860, a
hint was enough in 1868. Toward the close of this period, just before
the disturbing Gentile invasion, the results of over-government showed
themselves most completely in the perversion or stupefaction of the
mental faculties. I heard men maintain with vehemence that Jesus
Christ was a practical polygamist; that the Gentile world was to be
utterly desolated before 1890, and the remnant submit to the Mormon
priesthood; that a republican government was a rebellion against God,
in that men sought to govern themselves without counsel of an in-spired priesthood and a prophet divinely appointed; and that a man
could not obtain honorable rank in heaven unless he had children on
earth. I heard women protest that they would not live as the one
wife of a man if possible to go into polygamy; that there was no exaltation in heaven to an unmarried woman; that it was a deadly sin
to refuse to enter polygamy; and that a woman or man wh6 voluntarily remained unmarried would be a servant to the Saints to all
eternity. Both sexes, accepted as a religious verity that slavery and
polygamy were established by direct command of God; that the Government was at war with the Almighty in the abolition of one and disapproval of the other; and that the mass of the people of the United
States were scoundrels who deserved death, and would soon be visited
with all the plagues of the Apocalypse. And these people did not
seem to be aware that they were insane. They argued earnestly and
swore' fluently in defense of their religion, quoted the Bible voluminously in favor of slavery and concubinage, and declaimed about truth
and freedom till they were black in the face with anger.  At the
autumn conference that year, Brigham pronounced the fiat: "No trade
with outsiders;" and, at the wave of his hand, all the commercial
relations of 75,000 people were changed in a'day; a dozen me'cantile
firms had their business destroyed, and were driven from the country.




540


4WESTERN WILDS.


Could this social and political condition have continued three generations, then would the future scientist have found in Utah an entirely
new variety of our species-Saxons without a constitutional government, Britons with no consciousness of a personal sovereignty, Americans lacking even the wish for a republic; wives willing to share a
husband's heart, maidens looking for an " exaltation " in polygamy,
and children with blood relationship so mixed that no "heraldry
Harvey " could ever have succeeded in tracing the circulation. From
a scientific stand-point, it is almost a pity the Gentile could not have
left Utah untouched for a century-it would have been such an interesting experiment.
I have said that Mormon polygamy necessarily produced three
effects: poverty, a tendency to deceit, and a sort of despotism. The
second tendency is strongly manifested in its history. No social institution ever required so much lying and treachery; and we have the
unique example of a "celestial law," so called by its devotees, which
necessitated the breaking of nearly all other divine laws.
The real origin of polygamy in the Mormon organization can not be
traced; their own account is that Joseph Smith had "preliminary
revelations on the subject as early as 1832," and it is clearly proved
that unlawful sexual relations were maintained by the Prophet from
the very start. Unless all the women who left the Church in those
early days have testified to a lie, he claimed sexual freedom for himself
as long ago as 1834. But the "' Revelation on Celestial Marriage,"
which is their warrant for the practice, is said to have been given July
12, 1843. It was at once taught to a few of the chosen, and privately
practiced, and, in the early part of 1844, began to be talked about.
Then the prophet and his brother Hyrum, Patriarch of the Church,
published the following in the Times and Seasons, Church paper, of
February 1, 1844:
NOTICEI
As we have lately been credibly informed that an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, by the name of Hyrum Brown, has been preaching polygamy and
other false and corrupt doctrines, in the County of Lapeer, and State of Michigan:
This is to notify him and the Church in general, that he has been cut off from the
Church for his iniquity; and he is further notified to appear at the Special Conference,
on the 6th of April next, to make answer to these charges.
JOSEPH SMITH,
HYRUM SMITH,
Preidents of the Church.
Tally this as Lie No. 1.
Six weeks afterwards, Hyrum found it necessary to write as follows:




SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


541


NAUTOO, March 5, 1844.
To the Brethren on China Creek, in Hancock County, greeting:
WHEREAS, Brother Richard Hewett has called upon me to-day to know my views concerning some doctrines that are preached in your place; and states to me that some of
your elders say, that a man hating a certain priesthood may have as many wives as he
pleases, and that doctrine is taught here. I say unto you that that man teaches false
doctrine, for there is no such doctrine taught here, neither is there any such thing practiced here; and any man that is found teaching privately or publicly any such doctrine,
is culpable, and will stand a chance to be called before the High Council, and lose his
license and membership also; therefore he had better beware what he is about.
HYRUM SMITH.
Printed in the Times and Seasons, page 475, of 5th volume, as bound.
Lie No. 2.
A  few weeks later Mrs. Law, Mrs. Dr. Foster, and other ladies
withdrew from the Church, giving as a reason that the Prophet had
tried to persuade them into the " spiritual wife" relation, and that the
doctrine of polygamy was taught in Nauvoo.      The whole Church, as
one man, indignantly depnied the charges, both the Smiths especially.
Lie No. 3.
The Expositor, a paper publishing the ladies' affidavits, was suppressed and the office wrecked, by order of Mayor Joseph Smith and
the Common Council, for which both the Smiths and other Mormons
were arrested by State authority. While under arrest, they held an interview with Governor Ford, and again bitterly denied the charges of
polygamy. Lie No. 4.
After Smith's death, all the elders sent on missions were instructed
to deny explicitly all charges of polygamy; and in July, 1845, Parley
P. Pratt, in the Millennial Star (Mormon organ in England), denounced "spiritual wifery" as a "doctrine of devils and seducing
spirits; but another name for whoredom, wicked and unlawful connection, and every kind of corruption, confusion and abomination."
Lie No. 5.
In May, 1848, the Millennial Star again denied the existence of
such a doctrine or practice among the Mormons. Lie No. 6.
All this time the missionaries of the church all over Europe were
denying the charge most vigorously, and backing up their denials by
all sorts of oaths, under all sorts of laws and circumstances.    The
Saints, on their way to California, were honored with the friendship of
Col.' Thomas L. Kane; to him their leaders repeated all these denials
and caused him to assure the government that the charges were false.
Lie No. 7.
In July, 1850, Apostle John Taylor, in a public discussion at




542


WESTERN WILDS.


Boulogne, France, again denied the doctine and practice! Lie No. 8.
(See Orson Pratt's works.)
That year Utah was organized by Congress, and Brigham sent Dr.
Bernhisel to represent the Saints in Congress.  The Doctor persistently assured President Fillmore that all statements as to Brigham's
having a plurality of wives were false and scandalous; and being
further assured by the report of Col. Kane, the President appointed
Brigham Young Governor! Lie No. 9-and a very profitable one.
Still rumors of polygamy in Utah continued to reach the States,
and Mr. B. G. Ferris, now of Ithaca, New York, who had been appointed Secretary of the Territory, sought Dr. Bernhisel to learn of
their truth. The Doctor pronounced it too absurd to talk about. So
the dreary record goes on, till we have fourteen printed or sworn denials of the existence of plural marriage between 1843, when it began,
and 1852, when it was avowed. Then the Mormons threw off all disguise; and now have the sublime impudence to claim that as the Government took them in as a Territory with polygamy, it is estopped
from objecting to it! Contrary to all principles of law they would
take advantage of their own wrong, and bind the Government by their
self-acknowledged perjury.  And incredible as it may appear, there
are "statesmen" in Congress willing, after this record, to give the
Mormons a State government in Utah on their simple promise to
abandon polygamy! After men have owned to fourteen successive
lies on one point, it is proposed they shall now be ~trusted to see if
they won't do better the fifteenth time. And, again, there are innocent
ones who claim that Brigham's word should be taken without qualification in regard to Mountain Meadows, when all must admit that
he and all his Church have repeatedly lied about polygamy.  The
plain fact is this: the tortuous policy necessitated by polygamy
has corrupted the very heart of Mormonism; treachery and "Punic
faith" are mingled in the very bone, blood and marrow of the
people, and there is not a prominent man in the Church but would
tell a lie as quickly as the truth, if he could thereby better deceive the
Government.
When pursuing the subject further on a scientific basis, we examine
similar systems elsewhere, we find similar difficulties; except that the
results are worse in Utah, because the people belong to races which
have not been trained to polygamy. If we accept the Mosaic account
literally, we are constrained to believe that the Almighty in person
instituted monogamy in the Garden of Eden in the time of man's innocence, giving one woman to one man with the emphatic statement




SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


543


that the two should become one flesh; and that a thousand years of
patriarchal simplicity passed away before even one of the chosen line
violated that law, the second recorded murderer being the first recorded polygamist. To this the "New Translation, by Joseph Smith,
Prophet and Revelator," adds that Cain, when he fled from the
presence of the Lord and built a city in the Land of Nod, taught his
descendants to live after the manner of the beasts of the field, neither
marrying nor giving in marriage.  It is just possible, however, that
the Mosaic account of the marriage of Adam and Eve was merely an
expression of the highest Jewish ideal of the best relation of the
sexes, the Jews, like some other people, being not quite able to live
up to their ideals. Be that as it may, their authentic history shows
that polygamy had died out among them at least three centuries before
Christ; and even after the conquest by Rome it was as unlawful in
Judea as it is in Ohio to-day. For the Civil Law (Roman) was strenuously monogamic from its origin in Greece, some centuries before
Christ, down to the last revision of the Code Civile, in France.
When, leaving the Mosaic record, we turn to profane history and
tradition, we find that while some races have always been monogamists, in the greater part of the world there have been constant exceptions. In the Oriental nations polygamy is provided for, in all the
laws and religious rules, and has naturally survived longer than any
other institution of primitive barbarism.  Polyandry, the exact opposite of the former, was naturally mnuch more limited; and I find it
difficult to believe that it originated in any state less than that of a
complete disorganization of society, resulting perhaps in the death of
nearly all the females. As in a state of nature, the relative births of
the two sexes must have been nearly equal, and while mankind lived
in a state of almost continual war, at least half of the males perished
early in middle life; so polygamy would have been natural, while the
marriage of one woman to several men would have been most unnatural.  But in those wonderful forced marches of whole nations,
which occurred in the early life of the race, it is possible nearly all
the female children perished by the way, or were destroyed-as I have
seen to be the case among the Shoshonees and some other Indian
tribes. And on resettlement polyandry would arise like other social
customs from a forced compromise.
Other perversions of true marriage are: wife-inheritance, which prevailed in the royal family of Persia; and sexual communism, in
which every woman was practically the wife of every man.  Manifestly this could only exist among the lowest tribes; for when more




544


WESTERN WILDS.


refined ideas of property arose, and with them the questions of descent
and distribution, it became necessary to know something of one's
paternity. This difficulty did not exist with polygamy, and hence it
was retained by many nations long after they had outgrown sexual
communism. But an additional difficulty rose: polygamy left many
men without wives, and more than doubled the temptations to wifely
infidelity. Hence, again, by the inevitable operation of a natural law,
polygamy has always tended to seclude women more and more from
society and temptation, to multiply guards to chastity, and increase
the severity of penalties. In Turkey and Utah alike the punishment
for marital infidelity is death. The secret police system, in the latter,
answers to the system of eunuchs and duennas in the former; and
were it not for the constant attrition of a free society, it would already
be as difficult to see a polygamous wife in Utah as an odalisque in
Persia.
But among those we call polygamists it would still seem that
monogamy was the general law, and the ownership of many wives
an exception, limited to the wealthy and powerful. Indeed, the numbers of the sexes are so nearly equal that polygamy is necessarily a
rather limited aristocracy every-where, but specially so in Utah, where
not more than one Mormon in four or five has a superfluity of women.
A community of polygamists is simply an impossibility. If every
marriageable woman in Utah took to herself one husband, there would
still be a thousand men without wives.  If every Mormon determined to live his religion, none could; and the practical adoption of
Mormonism by every man in the community would at once render
polygamy impossible. When, therefore, all men adopt Mormonism,
as the "prophets" say they will, Mormonism will necessarily cease
to exist.
The same gradation outlined above is observable in the different
orders of the lower animals.  The very lowest live in sexual communism, in some cases both sexes being united in the same individual;
higher in the scale, and particularly among domestic cattle, we find
something very like polygamy; but when we reach the finest animal
development, monogamy is the rule.  Sheep, goats, cattle and swine
practice polygamy; doves, pigeons, eagles and lions go in pairs.
History, however, tells of some of the superior races of mankind
who never had either communism or polygamy. Neither tradition nor
mythology carry us back to the time when the Greeks were not monogamists. Prostitution there always was, and some of their prominent men are on record as having kept mistresses; but the distinction




SPIRITUAL WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.               545
was as plain as among us, the woman and her children being considered a separate class. When the Greek hetaira went into society, the
Greek wife stayed at home.  The Iliad plainly shows that all the arrangements of that time (1200 B. C.) were founded on the prevalence
of monogamy, though, to be sure, Paris was a little wild in his youth,
and Agamemnon hardly did the square thing by Clytemnestra when
he accepted Chryseis as a brevet wife " for ten years, or during the
war."
But the history of the Messenian war shows most conclusively the
savagely monogamic character of Greek law and sentiment. After
fighting their revolted slaves about thirty years, the elders decided
that there would be no young soldiers to continue the strife in the
next generation unless extraordinary measures were taken.  As a
"war measure" exclusively, therefore, it was enacted that every unmarried woman should bear children, herself choosing the father; and
that they should be deemed legitimate.  Thus arose the class known
as Parthenidee-" sons of the virgins."  But when the war was over
the legitimates raised such a row with the Parthenidse, that the latter
emigrated in a body, forming one of the new States of Greece. This
is conclusive that the people there had no idea of any' other legal
system  than monogamy.   The early Italians, and after them  the
Romans, were monogamic from the start.    The "'Twelve Tables"
were codified from older Greek laws, and adopted in Rome 450 years
before Christ, all the canons of descent therein assuming only one
wife and one family of children as legally possible. As the civil law
is thus known to be almost five hundred years older than Christianity,
it is conclusive that polygamy has been unlawful in Southern Europe
some twenty-four centuries. Thence the law passed to all the Spanish
possessions in America.  Alta California, including Utah, was proclaimed part of New Spain, and the laws extended over it by proclamation soon after its exploration, about the middle of the sixteenth
century, since which time polygamy has been unlawful on this soil.
The Mormons gain nothing by the plea that they settled in Mexican
territory, and that the supremacy of the United States was extended
over them without their consent, though we can easily believe the
latter.
In view of the fact that all North European races have been monogamous for thousands of years, it is all the more remarkable that
polygamy should ever have been established among a people in whom
English blood is so predominant.  The average American can comprehenid in a dim way how polygamy might have existed, and been
35




546


VEXTEIN FPILL)X.


natural enough in the far-off twilight of time when a man wandered
from place to place, and had his wives and other property on camels
and in tents; but polygamy in a modern city, with water, gas and
----      _.
_ ~_ ---; —`~ ----2~-~    ---— ~ --- ---
-
CAPE HORN AND RAILROAD, AS SEEN FROM BELOW.
milliner bills, or on a farm cultivated by steel plows, and traversed by
daily trains of travel and commerce, seems to him like a monstrous
joke. But now that its early history is so well known, it is evident
that polygamy got into the Mormon Church rather by accident than
design. It was simply legalizing the passions of a few men.




SPIRITUA4 WIVES AND CARNAL HUSBANDS.


54Y


If, then, polygamy has turned the Mormons into a deceitful community, the question naturally arises: Have they made their deceit
profitable?  In many respects it must be admitted that they have.
In their case it appears that a lie, well stuck to, is almost as good as
the truth; for by united and persistent action they have succeeded in
making the American people believe many things which have no basis
in fact. They so far deceived Col. Kane that he in turn deceived the
Government and people, making them believe Brigham a good Christian monogamist.  They deceived the country for fifteen years about
Mountain Meadows.    They succeeded in getting a government to
their liking by denying the existence of polygamy, and have become
such experts in "pious frauds" that they deceive nine out of ten who
visit Utah. Nevertheless, there are drawbacks.  Every year shows
how fast Utah is falling behind other Western communities.  It has
been settled twice as long as Colorado, and had a population of 60,000
when the first village of white men was located near Denver; yet
Colorado has nearly three times as much aggregate wealth as Utah,
and is progressing twice as fast.  The little hamlet of Geogetown,
Colorado, alone has a finer set of water-works, a far better school system, more complete public buildings and larger libraries than Salt
Lake City. Salt Lake has invariably been the last city in the mountains to adopt the latest conveniences for light, water and transportation.
There is not a foot of regular turnpike, a rod of bowldered street or a
mile of navigable canal in Utah.
But the highest eulogies of their apologists are reserved for " Mormon industry."  The Mormons are just like all other people in one
respect-they will work rather than starve; but unlike most other
people in America in the fact that, when their purely material wants
are satisfied, the most of them care for nothing further.  They have
adopted the bee as their model, and are content with the blind instincts of the bee-satisfied with food and shelter, with no regard to
the higher man.   Compare the Scandinavian settlements in Iowa
and Minnesota with the Scandinavian settlements in Utah; the
former, though of the same age, are five times as prosperous and
progressive as the latter.  There we see the results of untrammeled
energy following natural law; here the results of a cruel and repressive theocratic system, which destroys individuality and contravenes
natural law. And, indeed, how can these people improve their condition? To advance, an agricultural community must have a regular
surplus to apply in improvements and new investments. But the surplus of these people is taken up in tithing and donations to the




548


WESTERN WILDS.


Church, and the ten per cent. a year which ought to go to building up
each man's prosperity, goes to swell the revenues of the Church.
And worse than all, the Church itself, or rather the priesthood, does
not profit thereby; for the system is a wasteful one and destructive to
real prosperity. All the sap and nutriment of the country, all that
ought to return in vivifying currents to the extremities, goes instead
to swell a bloated and unwholesome excrescence. And yet the excrescence (the priesthood) does not really thrive by it. The present
condition of Utah is a complete answer to every argument ever advanced in favor of a "paternal government."
What, then, is the duty of Congress? Manifestly to reform the
government of Utah so that all political power will not be in the
hands of the priesthood; to give the people a free ballot, and take
away from the polygamists the power to count their women's votes in
the interests of the Church. Also to reform the jury system in some
way so that Brigham Young can not control the verdict, and to see
that the Mountain Meadow murderers are punished. It is said that
there are still a few people in the East in favor of creating a Mormon
State-that is, be it understood, a state where every official, from
governor to constable, would be nominated by Brigham Young, and
elected by the Mormon majority, voting solidly under the direction of
the priesthood. Then we should have Gentile mining interests, involving millions, settled by Mormon priests as judge and jury; Gentile estates cut up in Mormon probate, and Mormons tithing the
inheritance of the widow and orphan; Mormon officials pursuing
accused men into Gentile towns, searching and insulting whom they
pleased. Riots, mobs and forcible rescues would follow as naturally
as the crop follows the seed; for nobody would have any confidence in
the law. These foreigners, arrogant by their religion and swelled by
triumph, would again organize the Nauvoo Legion, which the gallant
Shaffer abolished, and enjoy themselves lording it over'American citizens.  And would the miners and Gentiles peaceably endure this?
Never. Come what may, though it cost blood to prevent it, this incestuous race and foresworn priesthood should never snap the whip
of priestly domination over American miners. You might as well
tell me that you can make Vesuvius into a powder-house, as that you
can erect a Mormon State in Utah, and have peace.




CHAPTER XXXIV.


THE NOBLE RED MAN.
ON a bright Sunday in June, 1876, while the nation was on the
top wave of the Centennial enthusiasm and opening of the Presidential campaign, the news went flashing over the wires that General
George A. Custer and
all his command lay
dead in a Montana
valley, the victims of
a   Sioux  massacre.
With him   had died
his two brothers, his
brother-in-law  and a
nephew; and of all
that entered that battle not one white man
survived. For a brief
space there was hope.pers which confirmed
every ghastly detail
of the first dispatbhes  a
came all other considerations; then, by natTHE NOBLE RED MAN.
ural revulsion, sorrow
gave place to indignation, and that in turn to a fierce demand for investigation and a victim. The public must have a victim when there
has been a misfortune. Then ensued a performance which was no
credit to us as a nation.  His opponents attacked President Grant as
the real cause of Custer's death; his friends foolishly defended the
President by criticising Custer; the latter's friends in the army sav(549)




550


WESTERN WILDS.


agely attacked Major Reno and Captain Benteen as being the cause of
the General's misfortunes, and thus the many-sided fight went on.
Before stating any facts bearing on this issue, a brief sketch of General Custer's previous experience on the plains is in order.
George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, Ohio, December 5, 1839, and was consequently but thirty-seven years old at the
time of his death. At ten years of age he went to live with an older
sister in Monroe, Michigan, and ever after considered that place his
home. There, on the ninth of February, 1864, he married Elizabeth,
only daughter of Judge Daniel S. Bacon. He entered West Point as
a cadet in 1857, and graduated four years after-away down in the
list. Worse still, he was court-martialed for some minor breach of
etiquette, and, badly as officers were needed just then, had some
trouble in getting located in the army. But we long ago learned that
rank at West Point by no means settles the officer's later standing in
the army. Soon after graduating he was made Second Lieutenant, and
assigned to Company "G," Second United States Cavalry, and arrived just in time to take a little part in the Bull Run battle and
stampede. A little later he served on the staff of General Phil.
Kearney, and early in the summer of 1862 was made fill captain and
aid-de-camp of General McClellan. And this contributed not a little
to some of his troubles in after years, as he was an enthusiastic
"McClellan man," and by no means reticent in his views. Animosities
were excited during that controversy which were not settled till long
afterwards.
Little by little Custer fought his way up, and the last year of the
war the country was charmed and excited by the brilliant movements
of Brigadier-General George A. Custer, of the United States Cavalry.
After the war we almost lost sight of him. Except that President
Johnson took him, along with a few others, as oin of the attractions
of that starring tour, swinging' 'round the circle," we hear no more of
Custer till the army was reorganized in, 1866, and he was once more
a captain in the United States Cavalry, this time on the plains. But
it was a different sort of army to that with which he had won his
early honors. Language fails to portray the utter demoralization of
our regular army from 1865 to 1869 or '70.  All the really valuable
survivors of the volunteer army had returned to civil life; only the
malingerers, the bounty-jumpers, the draft-sneaks and worthless remained. These, with the scum of the cities and frontier settlements,
constituted more than half of the rank and file on the plains. The officers, too, had been somewhat affected by the great revolution. The




THE NOBLE RED 3IAN.


old West Pointers were dead, or retired on half pay, or had grown to
such rank in the volunteer army that they could not bear to drop back
to their old position in the regular service. The officers consisted of
new men from West Point; of men who had been appointed from
civil life or from the volunteer army, in most instances to oblige some
politician; and a few men like Custer, to whom military life was both
a pleasure and a legitimate business.  Desertion was so common
among the private soldiers that it entailed no disgrace anywhere in
the West. Hundreds enlisted simply to get transportation to the '..
Rocky Mountains, and then de- [                  R:
serted. When our wagon-train was    Y      6g   Tii*2j6'11
on its way to Salt Lake in 1868 a MT\^
deserter traveled with us two days, ^/ f' bi
dressed in his military clothing, and:,  att Fie d ^9 ^
without the slightest} attempt at       1
concealment.  In  this wretched   *.      -
state of the service in the West,.": ''
Custer was promoted to the rank of /  <             i earnet
Lieutenant-Colonel, and put in com-         #_ oud Peak
mand of the Seventh United States M._....~  l. 150 o
Cavalry.
Cavalry.                           SCENE OF SIOUX WAR OF 1876.
It was but nominally a cavalry
regiment. The men were there, and the horses, with guns, equipnents, an organization and a name; but as a cavalry regiment he had
to make it, and he did it so well that it soon became the reliable regiment of the frontier. The new Colonel's career, for some time to
come, was among the hostile Indians of Western and South-western
Kansas-then the worst section of the Far West for Indian troubles.
The tourist who, glides rapidly and with such keen enjoyment through
this region, by way of the Kansas Pacific or Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe Road, can scarcely conceive that but a few years have
elapsed since it contained thousands of murderous savages; for it is a
noteworthy fact that nothing so soon moderates the danger of Indian
-attacks as a railroad.  It seems that, even if no fighting is done, the
mere presence of the road, with daily passage of trains, either drives
the Indians away or renders them harmless. But in the early days the
routes to the Colorado mines were raided at regular intervals. One
year there would be almost perfect peace, the next a bloody Indian war.
It seems to have been the policy of the Indians to behave well long
enough to throw emigrants off their guarc, then swoop down and mur



552


WESTERN WILDS.


der and plunder with impunity. The region between the Smoky Hill
and the. Republican was particularly noted for bloody encounters.  It
was raided in turn by Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and often by all
three in concert.  Every ravine and knoll on the route has its own
local legend-the details, a blending of the ludicrous and horrible.
Tradition  relates
that two bold settlers started  for
the mines in a time
of profound peace,
nfe                 '               - T   just after the In-In__=_-         _                   dians had concluded a most solemn   treaty and
shaken hands over
their promise to
live  in  eternal
peace with the
whites; the settiers, in Western..  mirth fulness,
BUSaTEiD." opainting on their
white wagoncover the words, "Pike's Peak or Bust."  A scouting party sent out
from some post came upon them on the Upper Republican just in time
to see the savages vanishing in the distance. The oxen lay dead in
the yoke. Beside the wagon were the corpses of the two settlers,
transfixed with arrows. They had " busted."
In 1864 the savages broke out worse than ever, carrying off several
women captive from the settlements in Kansas. In 1865 there was
a precarious peace; but in 1866 and '67 the Indians raided every part
of the stage road. Meanwhile the noted "Chivington massacre" had
occurred, and General P. E. Connor had, by extraordinary exertions,
killed some Montana Indians; both events were seized upon by East-'
ern "humanitarians," and for awhile, they succeeded in completely
paralyzing all portions of our army. And here it may be observed
that our peculiar, tortuous, uneconomical and most unsatisfactory
Indian policy, is the result of a certain conflict of forces highly liable
to occur in a free republic. There is, first, a small but eminently
respectable and powerful party which is opposed to fighting the
Indian at all, and think he'might be fed and soothed into keeping the




THE NOBLE RED MAN.


553


peace; and that, at any rate, it would be cheaper to feed all the
Indians to repletion than to fight them. And as to this last point they
are emphatically correct. There is, next, a considerably larger number, mostly on the frontiers, who believe in a war-of extermination,
but they have little or no political influence. There are also the
traders and agents, some honest and some otherwise, whose interests
are involved; and the sensible middle class, who believe in keeping
treaties with the Indians, and thrashing them if they break treaties.
Of course it sometimes happens that one of these parties is ahead, and
then another. As a result our policy is strangely crooked, inconsistent and expensive. The Indian ho sooner gets accustomed to one
policy than another is adopted; he has scarcely learned to trust one
officer till another is in his place, who takes a malicious pleasure,
apparently, in undoing all that the former has done. This uncertainty
entails frightful expense both in treasure and life. But it is a difficulty inseparable, apparently, from our form of government.
It is unnecessary to trace the causes which led to Hancock's campaign against the Indians in 1867. It was a formidable affair on
paper, but accomplished nothing. Our whole force consisted of eight
troops of cavalry, seven companies of infantry and one battery of
artillery, the whole numbering 1,400 men. General Hancock, with
seven companies of infantry, four of the Seventh Cavalry, and all the
artillery, marched from Fort Riley to Fort Harper, and there was
joined by two more troops of cavalry. Thence they marched southeast to Fort Larned, near the Arkansas. The hostile Indians, consisting of Cheyennes and Sioux, had appointed a council near by; but
all sorts of difficulties seemed to arise to prevent their coming up to
time. First, there was a heavy snow, although it was the second
week in April; and the runners reported that the bands could not
come. Then word came that they had started, but found it necessary
to halt and kill some buffalo; and again that they had once come in
sight, but were afraid on account of so many soldiers being present.
Then General Hancock proceeded up the stream to hunt the Indian
camp, and was met by an imposing band of warriors. Another parley ensued: midway between the hostile forces Generals Hancock,
A. J. Smith and others met Romap Nose, Bull Bear, White Horse,
Gray Beard and Medicine Wolf, on the part of thie Cheyennes, and
Pawnee Killer, Bad Wound, Tall-Bear-that-walks-under-Ground,
Left Hand, Little Bull and Little Bear, on the part of the Sioux.
There was no fighting, but after a few days more of excuses, the
mounted Indians suddenly departed. Then it was discovered that the




554


WESTERN WILDS.


whole proceeding was but a well-played ruse to enable the Indians to
get their women and children to a place of safety, and leave the warriors free for contingencies. The accomplished commanders of the
American army had been tricked by a lot of dirty savages. Custer
in the lead, pushed on with all possible speed after the Indians, but in
vain. They had struck the stage stations on the Smoky Hill route,
and murdered several persons; and the war was begun. It ended
decidedly to the advantage of the Indians.
- -                          ~ _ -~ — _- --  ~ ~:_~. ----  ~ —~ ---
OUSTRBS FIiST INDIAN FIGHT.
Custer's first experience in actual Indian fighting was while escorting a wagon-train loaded with supplies from Fort Ellis. The Indians
had selected for the fight a piece of ground well cut up with gulliesan admirable system of "covered ways "-by which they hoped to get
close up to the wagons without being discovered, and then make a
charge. But the watchful eye of a scout discovered their plan, and
brought on the conflict on ground more favorable to the whites. The
train was simultaneously attacked on all sides by six or seven hundred
well-mounted Indians, outnumbering Custer's party twelve to one.
The savages attacked in the manner known as " circling "-that is,
riding round and round the whites, hanging on the opposite side of
their horses so as to be shielded, and firing over the animal's back
and under his bi'east. The scout Comstock had predicted a long and
obstinate battle: "Six hundred red devils ain't a goin' to let fifty men
stop them from getting the sugar and coffee that's in these wagons."
And they did not yield the prize as long as there was hope. The
-oldiers were located around the wagons in skirmish order. The
~ZS~C~ m__B wIDCNFG~L
Cute' fr eprec          ata    ni    fgtn     a   ri    fcosloldiers were located atround the wagons in skzirmish ordier. The




THE NOBLE RED MAAN.


555


Indians encircled them in a much larger ring; but though the firing
continued for hours, only a few Indians were hit, so difficult was it to
take aim at the swiftly flying horse or rider. All this time the train
moved slowly on over the comparatively level prairie, the teamsters
shivering with terror, and scarcely needing the command to "keep
closed up-one team's head right against the next wagon."  This fight
lasted three hours, and had the Indians maintained it much longer,
the soldiers must have run out of ammunition. But the savage scouts,
posted all around on the highest points, gave warning that something.
was wrong; and soon the whole band ceased firing and galloped off.
Five of them had been killed and several wounded. The cause of
their sudden retreat proved to be Colonel West's cavalry command,
which soon arrived.
Custer's next anxiety was for Lieutenant Kidder and his party of
eleven men, who were known to be moving across from the Republican to Fort Wallace, through a country now swarming with hostile
Indians. Soon after getting the supply train into camp, Comstock,
the scout, was appealed to for his opinion as to Kidder's chances. It
was far from encouraging. But Comstock's reply to the officers contains some hints worth recording. Said he: "Well, gentlemen, there's
several things a man must know to give an opinion. No man need tell
me any pints about Injuns. If I know any thing, it's Injuns. I know
jest how they'll do any thing, and when they'll take to do it; but
that don't settle the question. Ef I knowed this young lootenint, if I
knowed what sort of a man he is, I could tell you mighty nigh to a
sartainty all you want to know; for,'you see, Injun huntin' and Injun
fightin' is a trade all by itself; and like any other bizness, a man has
to know what he's about, or ef he don't, he can't make a livin' at it.
I have lots o' confidence in the fightin' sense o' Red Bead, the Sioux
chief, who is guidin' the lootenint, and ef'that Injun can have his
own way, there is a fair show for his guidin' 'em through all right;
but there lays the difficulty.. Is this lootenint the kind of a man
that is willin' to take advice, even if it does come from an Injun?  My
experience with you army folks has allays been that the youngsters
among ye think they know the most; and this is 'specially true ef
they've jist come from West Pint. Ef one o' 'em young fellers
knowed half as much as they bleeve they do, you couldn't tell 'em
nothin'. As to rale book larnin', why I spose they've got it all, but
the fact of the matter is they couldn't tell the difference 'twixt the
trail of a war party and one made by a huntin' party to save their
necks. Half uv 'em when they first cum here can't tell a squaw


a




556


WESTERN WILDS.


from a buck, because they both ride straddle; but they soon larn. But
that's neither here nor thar. I'm told that this lootenint we're talkin'
about is a new-comer, and that this is his first scout. Ef that be the
case, it puts a mighty unsartain look on the whole thing; and 'twixt
you and me, gentlemen, he'll be mighty lucky ef he gets through all
right. To-morrow we'll strike the Wallace trail, and I can mighty
soon tell whether he's gone that way."
Next day the relief party, led by Custer, came on Lieutenant
Kidder's trail, and after a brief examination Comstock pronounced:
" The trail shows that twelve American horses, shod all around, have
passed at a walk; and when they went by this pint they war all
right, because their horses are a movin' along easy, and no pony
tracks behind 'em, as would be ef the Injuns had an eye on 'em. It
would be astonishin' for that lootenint and his layout to git into the
fort without a skrimmage. He may, but ef he does, it'll be a scratch
ef ever there was one; and I'll lose my confidence in Injuns."
Custer ordered the command to hurry up, and, following the trail,
they came, in a few hours, upon two dead horses with the cavalry
brand, but stripped of all accouterments. A little farther, and they
saw that the American horses had been going at full speed, while all
around Comstock pointed out the minute but abundant evidences that
the Indians had fought them from all sides, the pony tracks being
numerous.   A little farther, and they entered the tall grass and
thickets along Beaver Creek, and there saw several buzzards floating
lazily in the air, while the trail was sprinkled with exploded cartridges
and other debris. That told the tale. Nor were they long in finding
the dead. The sight made the blood even of these brave men curdle.
Lieutenant Kidder and his companions lay near together, stripped of
every article of clothing, and so brutally hacked and mangled that all
separate recognition was impossible. Every skull had been broken,
every head scalped; the bodies were mutilated in an obscene and indescribable manner, and some lay amid ashes, indicating that they had
been roasted to death. The scalp of Red Bead, the friendly Sioux, lay
by his body, as it is contrary to their rules to carry away the scalp of
one of their own tribe; nor is it permitted among most Indians to
keep such a scalp or exhibit it. The exact manner of their death can
not be known, but all the surroundings showed that they fought long
and well. Custer's command buried them on the spot where found,
whence the father of Lieutenant Kidder removed his remains the next
winter.
Custer marched on to Fort Wallace with all possible speed, but




THE NOBLE RED MAN.


557


troubles multiplied. The soldiers had begun to desert. Forty men
took "French leave" in one night! The next day thirteen men
deserted in broad day, in full view of the command, seven mounted
and six on foot. After a desperate run the latter were captured, two
slightly and one mortally wounded. It is to be noted that they were
then in a region where the deserters apprehended no danger from
Indians. Two men were killed by the Indians after all danger was
thought to be past. From Fort Wallace the command 'marched eastward to Fort Hayes. The war was over, and Custer applied for and
obtained leave to visit, by rail, Fort Riley, where his family was then
located; and for this, and other matters connected with that campaign,
Custer was court-martialed! This proceeding appears to have been
purely malicious, prompted by the dislike of some inferior officers over
whom. Custer had exercised pretty severe discipline.  The charges
were drawn by one whom he had severely reprimanded for drunkenness. He had left Fort Wallace without orders, because, under the
circumstances, he thought proper to report to his commander in
person. To this they added the fact that he went on to Riley to
visit his family, and thus constructed a charge that he had abandoned
his post for his private convenience! Mean as this attack was, it was
successful. Custer was suspended from rank and pay for one year!
Meanwhile another summer campaign was undertaken against the'
hostile Indians, with equally barren results. General Sully marched,
in 1868, against the combined Cheyennes, Kioways, and Arapahoes,
whom he struck near the present Camp Supply. If this was a " drawn
battle," that is the best that can be said of it. Sully retired, badly
crippled, and made no further attempts. At the same time General
"Sandy" Forsythe, with a company of scouts and plainsmen enlisted
for the purpose, was hunting for the hostile Sioux on the northern
affluents of the Republican. He found them. They also found him,
Of his total force of fifty-one men, six were killed and twenty
wounded; all their horses were captured, and the command was only
saved from annihilation by the arrival of reinforcements. The Noble
Red Man evidently understood his business better than the Generals
opposed to him. The people of Colorado grew sarcastic. Western
people often do when mail and supplies are cut off for weeks at a time,
It appeared that the mountain territories were in a fair way to be
Isolated from the rest of the country. California Joe, a scout who had
been with several of the commanders, thus gave in his experience:
" I've been with 'em when they started out after the Injuns on
wheels-in an ambulance-as if they war goin' to a town funeral


O




558


WESTERN WILDS.


in the States, and they stood about as much chance o' ketchin' the
Injuns as a six-mule train would of ketchin' a pack o' coyotes. Thqt
sort o' work is only fun for the Injuns; they don't want any thing
better. Ye ought to seen how they peppered it to us, and we, doin'
nothing all the time. Some war afraid the mules war a goin' to stampede and run off with all our grub, but that war onpossible; for,
besides the big loads of corn and bacon, thar war from eight to a
dozen infantry men piled into every wagon. Ye'd ought to heard the
quartermaster in charge o' the train tryin' to drive the men outen the
wagons and git them into the fight. He was an Irishman, and he sez
to 'em: 'Git out of thim waggins. Yez 'ill hev me tried for disobadience ov orders for marchin' tin men in a waggin whin I've orders
but for eight.'"
But the rude common sense of General Sheridan, soon after his
arrival on the plains, put an end to summer campaigning. He and
Sherman united in asking for the restoration of Custer; and, on the
12th of November, 1868, that officer, at the head of his command
again, started out on his famous Washita campaign. Soon after the
departure from Fort Dodge, on the Arkansas, the command was overtaken by a violent snow-storm; but this the commander thought all
the more favorable to his plans. General Sheridan could only point
out to Custer the neighborhood of the hostiles' camp, and leave all
details to his judgment. With four hundred wagons and a guard
of infantry for them, and the Seventh Cavalry in fighting order, he
pressed rapidly southward to the edge of the Indian country, where a
camp was established for the wagons, as a base of supplies, and the
cavalry pressed on. California Joe and other scouts accompanied the
expedition, besides a small detachment of Osage Indians, headed by
Little Beaver and Hard Rope, who did excellent service. After a
terrible winter march, the command, 800 strong, arrived at the bluff
of the Washita at midnight, and saw below them, in the moonlight,
the hostile camp. It was evident, at a glance, that the Indians trusted
implicitly in the old army habit of fighting them oply in summer.
They had no scouts out, and were buried in repose. The command
was divided into four nearly equal detachments; and, by making wide
detours, the Indian camp was completely surrounded before daylight.
The night was terribly cold, but no fire could be lighted, and the
suffering was intense. As Custer stood upon the brow of the hill, and'
peered through the darkness into the camp, he distinctly heard the
cry of an Indian baby, borne through the cold, still air, and reflected
with pain that, under the circumstances, there was so much probability




THE NrOBLE RED MAN.


559


that the troopers' bullets would make no distinction of age or sex.
Soon after daylight the attack was made.  Although taken by surprise, the Indians fought desperately, but were utterly routed.  It
practically annihilated Black Kettle's band of Cheyennes.  A hundred and three warriors were killed, fifty-three squaws and children
captured, eight hundred and seventy-five ponies taken, and a vast
amount of other property. Of the force, two officers and nineteen
men were killed, three officers and eleven men wounded. In the very


RUDE SURGERY OF THE PLAINS.
hour of victory Custer discovered that this was but one of a long line
of villages extending down the Washita; but he had struck such
terror that the others did not gather force sufficient to attack, and he
returned to camp in safety.
And here it may be noted that in plains' travel and fighting, there
is no difficulty so great as dealing with the wounded. With all the
appliances furnished our army surgeons, there must still be many
deficiencies; and, with the ordinary plainsman, a bad wound is either




560


WESTERN WILDS.


certain death or a long and terrible struggle, in which nothing saves
the man but an iron constitution. In the old days a regular backwoods' science grew up among trappers and voyageurs; they treated
gunshot wounds and broken bones, extracted bullets and arrows, or
amputated shattered limbs in a way that would have amazed the
faculty, but was singularly successful.  The camp-saw and a well
sharpened bowie-knife were their surgical instruments; their cauteries,
hot irons; and their tourniquets, a handkerchief twisted upon the
limb with a stick run through the knot and turned to press upon the
artery.  Arrows were often drawn through the limb, the feathers
having been cut off; and bullets flirted out of an incision quickly
made with a sharp razor. In winter the wounded limb was almost
frozen by snow or ice applied before the amputation; in summer there
was nothing for it but to suffer it through. An old voyageur, with
but one arm, gave me an accoulnt of his losing the other, which made
my " each particular hair to stand on end."  The arm was completely
shattered below the elbow; it was amputation or death, and the party
was a thousand miles from any surgeon.  Iqut with knife, saw, and
red-hot iron the job was skillfully done; he survived such rude surgery
without a shock to his fine constitution.
After a brief rest Custer was again sent to the Washita, where he
alternately negotiated with and threatened the savages until lie had
recovered some captives they held, and located the Indians near the
forts. And here originated the difficulty between him and General
W. B. Hazen, then in charge of the southern Indians-Custer maintaining that Satanta and Lone Wolfs bands of Kioways had been in
the fight against him, Hazen denying it.  It was six years before the
matter was settled, Hazen producing unquestionable evidence that he
was right. We find evidences, from time to time, that Custer was
somewhat hasly in his judgments, and very impulsive in giving utterance to them-in short, that lie had some of the faults as well as all
the virtues of a dashilng, impetuous man.
For two years there was peace on the plains; but in the spring of
1873 the first Yellowstone expedition went out.  From Yankton the
Seventh Cavalry, with Custer in command, marched. all the way to
Fort Rice, six hundred miles, Mrs. Custer and other ladies accompanying the column on horseback.  There the ladies halted, but it
was not till July that the entire expedition started-cavalry, infantry,
artillery and scouts, numbering seventeen hundred men-all under
command of Major-General D. S. Stanley. The main object was to
explore the country, and open a way for the surveyors of the Northern




THE NOBLE RED MAN.


561


Pacific Railroad. Custer, as usual, was put in the lead, and soon after
reaching the Yellowstone had several skirmishes with the Indians,
who were desperately resolved against the passage of a railroad
through the country. If they could only have looked forward over
the next year of the financial world, they might have been spared all
anxiety on that point. During this march the sutler and veterinary
surgeon of the Seventh Cavalry were murdered by a Sioux called
Rain-in-the-Face; and out of that matter grew the latter's hostility to
Custer, and perhaps the latter's tragic death three years after.
Early in 1874 began the memorable Black Hills expedition, an undertaking that began in the grossest injustice and ended in wholesale
murder.  From the first discovery in California, rumors had constantly prevailed of great gold placers in the Black Hills, but the region was a mystery. The Warren Expedition, in 1857, had gone
around the whole district, but the Sioux emphatically prohibited them
from entering it, stating that it was sacred ground. Other expeditions
proved that the region was a great oval, about a hundred by sixty
miles in extent, cut up by numerous low mountain ranges covered
with timber; that it possessed, as do all such mountainous regions, a
more rainy climate than the plains, and scores of little valleys of
great fertility. It is obvious, from the lay of the country, that the region can not contain any great area of agricultural land, but quite
probable that it abounds in good mountain pastures and timbered
hills. The tenacity with which the Sioux clung to it only the more
convinced the Westerners that it contained gold by millions, and
many were the exciting stories told. The treaty of 1868 confirmed it
to Red Cloud and other chiefs in person in Washington, and
the Black Hills were declared inviolable-a section of the Indian
reservation never to be trespassed upon by white men. The Custer
expedition of 1874 was undertaken in direct violation of that treaty,
and upon the half-avowed principle that treaties were not to be kept
with Indians if whites needed the country in question. Consistent
with this ill-faith the expedition was made the occasion of ridiculous
exaggeration, not to say downright falsehood.  Correspondents were
sent along wvith descriptive powers suited to an earthly Eden, and
they described one; explorers went to find gold by millions, and they
found it. The country needed a sensation, and the Government took
the contract of supplying it. When the expedition had returned, and
the brilliant correspondents had made their report, General Hazen undertook to moderate popular enthusiasm by portraying the high plains
as they generally are; but the public rejected him, and found in his
36




562


WESTERN WILDS.


testimony only another evidence of his animosity to General Custer.
The general result was, settlement of the Black Hills before the Indian title was extinguished, and another expensive and fruitless Indian war.
The next year Rain-in-the-Face, a noted brave of the Uncpapa
Sioux, was arrested for the murder of Dr. Honzinger and Mr.
Baliran, of the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873. He was brought
before Custer, thoroughly examined, and sentenced to death, but managed to escape, joined the hostile band of Sitting Bull, and sent word
that he was prepared to take revenge for his imprisonment. There is
evidence, though not quite conclusive, that this Indian gave Custer
the death-blow.  Here it is necessary to point out an important distinction in the organization of different bands.  The ordinary Indian
government is patriarchal, and in many bands a majority of the families are in some way related to the chief; but though the chieftainship is nominally hereditary, its continuance in any line finally depends on the prowess of the claimant.  If he fails in any particular,
another chief at once supplants him. Hence the absurdity of the plan
generally adopted by our Government of trying to choose chiefs for
the Indians, or to recognize one rather than another. If the young
men can not have the leader they want, they generally join the " hostiles." These bands are made up on an entirely different plan-by
convenience rather than relationship. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, or
some other active fighter, gets a reputation as war chief, and all the
discontented braves join him; as a rule there are few women in such a
band, and the number of men is, therefore, apt to be underrated on
distant view. Still more distinct is a third class, commonly known as
"dog soldiers."  These are outcasts or runaways from all the tribes,
who get together in squads of from five to five hundred; sometimes
they dissolve and melt into the original tribes, sometimes are merged
into some one big tribe, or simply wear out. Their communication at
first is entirely by the "sign language;" if together long enough, a
new Indian dialect arises from the jargon of so many tongues. It has
occasionally happened that a large band of" dog soldiers" would capture women enough for their wants, conquer a territory for themselves, and in time grow into an entirely new tribe. Thus the
Comanches, Arapahoes and Apaches are said to have descended from
the original Shoshonees; while the Navajoes resulted from the union
of part of the old Aztecs with an offshoot of the Shoshonees-or of the
original Athabascan stock, from which the latter sprang.
In 1876, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse led the hostile Sioux, and to




THE NOBLE RED MAN.


563


them rapidly gathered all the discontented young braves from the
agencies. As near as can be determined the latter chief began the
season with eight hundred braves-the former with nearly twice as
many.   Their position was, the best that military art could have selected. From it the affluents of the Yellowstone ran northward; the
lower affluents of the Missouri eastward; on the east and north it was
doubly protected by the "bad lands;" north-west and west were
rugged mountains, and southward the high plains stretched for many
hundred miles. Around the extreme outer edge of the hostile country, from north-west and north to north-east and east, ran the Missouri; on that stream were located all the agencies, and from them,
through "friendly" Indians, went a constant stream of supplies to the
warriors. By careful examination of the books (after the damage had
been done), it was proved that these bands received in five months
56 cases of arms, containing 1,120 Winchester and Remington rifles,
and 413,000 rounds of patent ammunition, besides considerable quantities of loose powder, lead and primers. It takes many such lessons
as this to convince the American people that this machine we call g-vernment is the most awkward, expensive and inefficient of all human
inventions; and yet the lesson is not learned, for, in spite of daily
multiplying evidences of its inherent inefficiency, new parties start up
every year urging, that government should run our schools and
churches, our mills, mines and workshops, our social, moral and industrial institutions. Daily is the lesson thrust upon us, that whatever
government does is done wrong; and daily we hear fresh demands that
government should do things which it was never organized to do.
The plain English of the foregoing figures is, that government first
armed the savages with repeating rifles, then sent an inferior force to
attack them on ground of their own choosing.
Three columns were to proceed from three points and converge on the
hostile region: Gibbon eastward from Fort Ellis, Montana; Crook
northward from Fort Fetterman; and Terry westward from Fort Abe
Lincoln, just across the Missouri from Bismarck, Dakota. Of course
they could not start at the same time. General Crook, with seven
hundred men and forty days' supplies, started the 1st of March and
reached and destroyed the village of Crazy Horse, on Powder River,
the 17th of March. But the Indians got away with most of their animals and supplies. The Gibbon column did not figure greatly till
the junction with Terry on the Yellowstone. Meanwhile the Terry
column, in which General Custer was the leading spirit, was delayed
in a score of ways. It could not start as early as that of Crook any



564


WESTERN WILDS.


how, as it was to move through a colder latitude, and, while waiting,
Custer was summoned to Washington.   The Belknap investigation
was in progress, and Hon. Heister Clymer, Chairman of the House
Committee, got it into his head that Custer could give important information.  In vain did Custer dispatch that he really knew nothing
about the case, and Terry urge that his call to Washington would
delay and imperil the expedition. Clymer was all the more certain
Custer had important information, and should be brought before the
committee and rigidly interrogated. On the 6th of March, Custer telegraphed a request that he might be examined at Fort Lincoln. This
Clymer flatly refused.  Custer had to go to Washington, and there it
was found that he really knew nothing about the case, and had only,
as was natural to one of his impulsive nature, talked freely about what
he had heard. But Heister Clymer had the satisfaction of compelling
a General to come before his committee, and delaying Custer's march
after Sitting Bull a whole month.  Then President Grant took hold.
The grim, impassive, hard-to-change General Grant took it into his
head that Custer's talk about the case had been an intentional affront
to him-why, no one ever knew. He refused to see Custer, though
the latter repeatedly called at the White House, and lonce sent in a
card asking in plain terms for a reconciliation.
Custer then called at the office of General Sherman, only to learn
that the latter was in New York, and might not return for some time;
then, on the night of May 1, took the train for Chicago. Next day
Sherman returned, and telegraphed to General Sheridan at Chicago,
that Custer "was not justified in leaving here without seeing me
(Sherman) or the President," and ordered that Custer remain at Saint
Paul till further orders. Somebody was evidently playing sad havoc
with Custer's character and plans.  He had, perhaps, talked too
much-that was his fault, if any thing-but it is impossible for the
non-military mind to see any other harm he had done. He was in
genuine distress. He telegraphed at length to General Sherman, and
then to President Grant; and the final result was that, after a deal of
red tape all around, he received permission to go with the expedition, in
command of his regiment, the Seventh U. S. Cavalry. The Terry column consisted of the Seventh Cavalry entire, three companies of the
Sixth and Seventeenth Infantry, with four Gatling guns and a small
detachment of Indian scouts, about eight hundred men in all. Gibbon
was coming in from the west with four hundred men, and Crook had
made another start from the south with fifteen hundred men. Thus
there were twenty-seven hundred armed men, distributed on the




TH NBE NOBE ED MAN.


565


circumference of a circle about three hundred miles wide, to concentrate near the center where the hostiles were supposed to be.
Crook first found the enemy. On the 8th of June, his force had a
skirmish with the Sioux, and repulsed them. A week later his Indian
scouts reported that they had seen Gibbon's command on the other
side of the hostile Sioux, on the Tongue River. On the 16th Crook
pushed rapidly forward towards the hostiles. Next morning Sitting
Bull attacked his camp in great force and with astonishing vigor. It
was not exactly a surprise, but all must agree that Crook gained no
advantage, and that Sitting Bull handled his forces admirably. Twice
during the action he succeeded in getting his warriors into positions
where they poured an enfilading fire into Crook's command. Meanwhile Generals Terry and Gibbon had communicated, and the latter
had shown, by thorough scouting, that the hostiles were as yet all south
of the Yellowstone. A glance at the map will show that the Powder,
Tongue, Rosebud, and Big Horn run north into the Yellowstone, and
the Little Horn into the Big Horn; and that, after these various scouts,
it was certain the hostiles were somewhere on those streams. Accordingly Terry commenced scouting for them in. that direction. So far
the general plan had worked well; its defect now appeared to be that
Gibbon and Terry were separated from Crook by at least a hundred
miles of mountainous country, and that in that region somewhere were
the hostiles, in good position to move either way. The whole object
of this plan was to prevent the Indians getting away without a fight,
and as to that it was a perfect success. The contingency of the Indians being well prepared for a fight had apparently not been considered.
Careful scouting narrowed the field, and finally it was decided that
the Indians were either on the head of the Rosebud or on the Little
Horn, a ridge about fifteen miles wide separating the two streams.
Terry and Gibbon, on the Yellowstone, near the mouth of Tongue
River, then held a council, and decided that Custer's column should
be pushed forward to strike the first blow. Crook was too far south
to be considered in this arrangement at all. The general plan is
briefly stated in Terry's dispatch to General.Sheridan, from the former's camp at the mouth of Rosebud, just before the final movement,
as follows:
Traces of a large and recent camp of Indians have been discovered twenty or thirty
miles up the Rosebud. Gibbon's column will move this morning on the north side of
the Yellowstone (see map), where it will be ferried across by the supply steamer, and
whence it will proceed to the mouth of the Little Horn, and so on. Custer will go up




56B


WESTERN WILDS.


the Rosebud to-morrow with his whole regiment, and thence to the head-waters of the
Little Horn, thence down the Little Horn.
The object, of course, was for Custer to head off the escape of the
Indians towards the east, while Gibbon would move up the Big Horn
and intercept them  in that direction.  It has been absurdly said
that Custer disobeyed or exceeded the general orders be received from
Terry; but, in fact, those orders were so very "general," that, aside
from the instructions as to route and sending scouts to seek Gibbon,
they might have been condensed to, "Go ahead, do your best; I trust
all to you." Similar orders directed the march of Gibbon up the Big
Horn. Should both columns march equally, all else being equal, it
would result that they would come together on the Big Horn, some
distance above (south) the junction of the Little Horn. There appears to have been no special order given as to rates of marching; and
so far the witnesses do not agree very well as to what either commander was to do if he struck the Indians first. The reasonable supposition is, that it was understood beforehand they were to fight on
sight. It was hardly to be supposed that Sitting Bull woqld accommodate them by slowly retiring before either, until the other could
come up in his rear. Custer's command received rations for fifteen
days. Thus supplied, and thus directed with only general orders and
plenary powers under them, Custer and his cavalry set out up the
Rosebud on the afternoon of June 22, 1876, which is the last account
we have from him in person. Thereafter his movements are known
only by the report of Major Reno, who succeeded to the command of
that section of the regiment which survived; the statements of various
officers in the same command; the evidence of Curly, an Upsaroka
scout, who alone survived the massacre, and some unsatisfactory accounts from the enemy. From all these sources, and a careful examination of the trails and battle-ground, the following facts are proved:
On the 22d, Custer marched his command about twelve miles up
the Rosebud, and encamped. On the 23d they continued up the Rosebud for about thirty-five miles, perhaps a little less. On the 24th
they advanced rapidly twenty-eight miles, and finding a fresh Indian
trail, halted for reports from scouts. By night they had received full
reports, and about 9:30 P. M., Custer called the officers together and
informed them that the Indians were in the valley of the Little Horn,
and that to surprise them they must cross over from one stream to the
other in the night. Accordingly they moved off at 11 P. M.; but about
2 A. -M. of the 25th, the scouts gave notice that the command could
not get across the divide before daylight; so a halt was made, provis



THE NOBLE RED MAN.


567


ions prepared, and breakfast eaten. Right here, apparently, Custer's
original plan failed. It would seem to have been his intention to repeat the Washita battle, and attack at sunrise. By 8 A. M., the command was nearing the Little Horn. Here the regiment was divided.
Major Reno took command of companies M, A and G; Captain Benteen of H, D, and K; Custer retained companies C, E, F, I and L,
and Captain McDougall, with company B, was placed as rear-guard
with the pack-train.  As they moved down the creek towards the
Little Horn, Custer was on the right bank, Major Reno on the left
bank, and Captain Benteen some distance to the left of Reno, and entirely out of sight. As near as can be determined the command had
marched some ninety miles since leaving Terry; but it is, claimed by
some that this last night and forenoon march was much longer than
reported.
About noon they came in sight of the Indian camp, on the opposite
side of the river, which at that point runs a little west of north, with
a considerable bend to the north-east. Enclosed within this bend, on
the left (west) side of the stream, began the Indian camps, which continued thence a long way down the Little Horn. As the command
-now enters the battle in three divisions, we must consider them separately. As far as Custer's plan can be known, it was for Reno to
cross, attack the upper end of the Indian camp, and drive them down
stream if possible; at any rate, to employ the warriors fully, while Custer
himself, to be reinforced by Benteen, should gallop around the bend
of the Little Horn and down some distance, then cross, and attack
from that side. It was evident that the time for a complete surprise
was past. The last order Reno had from Custer was: " Move forward
at as rapid a gait as you think prudent, charge afterwards, and the
whole outfit will support you."  Pursuant thereto, Reno with his
command took a sharp trot for two miles down the stream to a convenient ford; then crossed, deployed with the Ree scouts on his left,
and opened the battle, the Indians retiring before him for about two
and a half miles. And here comes in the first doubtful proceeding.
Reno says: "I saw that I was being drawn into some trap. * * * I
could not see Custer or any other support, and at the same time the
ground seemed to grow Indians. They were running towards me in
swarms, and from all directions." He retired a little to a piece of
woods, dismounted, had his men fight on foot, and advanced again.
He says that the odds were five to one, and he saw that he must regain high ground or be surrounded. Accordingly he remounted his
men, charged across the stream, some distance below where he had




568


WESTERN WILDS.


crossed before, and hurried to the top of the bluff, losing three officers
and twenty-nine men killed, and seven men wounded in this operation.
In fact, nearly his entire loss occurred in this retreat, men and horses
being shot from behind. It would seem to a civilian, who has, perhaps, no right to criticise an Indian fight, that it would have been far
cheaper, and more nearly in accordance Fwith his orders, to stick to
the woods on the west side and fight it out for a few hours. The surgeon present says there was only one man wounded before Reno abandoned the timber.
We turn now to Benteen.    That officer, having been ordered to
the extreme left while marching down the affluent towards the Little
Horn, was necessarily several miles off when the rest of the command turned to the right and down the Little Horn. Finding no
Indians, he recrossed the affluent and marched down the trail left by
Custer. About three miles, as he says, from where Reno first crossed,
he met a sergeant carrying orders to Captain McDougall to hurry up
the pack-train; a little further onl he met Trumpeter Martin with
an order from Custer, written by Adjutant McCook, and the last he
ever penned, which read, "Benteen, come on; big village; be quick;
bring packs."  About a mile further on he came in sight of the
Little Horn, and saw Reno retreating up the bluffs. 'He also saw
"twelve or fifteen dismounted men fighting on the plain, the Indians
there numbering about 900!" About 2:30 P. M., he came up to
where Reno had gathered his forces on the right bluff.  The division of the regiment into three battalions was made at 10:30 A. M.;
Benteen says that his scout and return to the main trail occupied about
one hour and a half, bringing it to noon.  How he consumed the
time from then till 2:30 P. M., none of the reports inform us. The
distance traversed could not have been over five miles, if we can
trust any thing to the military map.  It also appears from the report that Boston Custer, brother of the General, had time to come to
the rear and pack-train, get a fresh horse, and go back to Custer,
passing Benteen, and be killed in the final slaughter. The reports
by various survivors seem to leave us in ignorance of much that we
should like to know.
It was now near 3 P. M., and as senior Major Reno had in comniand his own and Benteen's battalions, and the company guarding the pack-train: Companies A, B, D, G, H, K and M, numbering 380
men, commanded by Captains Benteen, Weir, French and McDougall,
and Lieutenants Godfrey, Mathey, Gibson, Edgerly, Wallace, Varnum and Hare. With them was Surgeon Porter. These officers are




THE NOBLE RED MAN.


569


restrained, to a great extent, by military courtesy, but as far as their
statements have been made public they indicate that there was no
very determined effort made to aid Custer.  Major Reno waited on
the bluff awhile (length of time not settled yet), then moved slowly
down the stream, and sent Captain Weir with his command to open
communication with Custer.  Weir soon returned with the information that the Indians were coming en masse; and, in a little while
after, Reno's force was furiously attacked. We learn at this stage of
the report that it was now 6 P. M. It seems impossible to stretch
any action of which mention is made so as to cover the time between
three and six.  And yet it appears from  an examination of the
ground that Custer could not, at three, have been more than three
miles away.  And, in the interim, the little squad of dismounted
men whom Benteen saw across the river, had beaten off the Indians
opposed to them and succeeded in reaching Reno without loss! But
Reno's command was attacked, as aforesaid, about 6 P. M.; held its
ground with the loss of 18 killed and 46 wounded, and had the
enemy beaten off by 9 P. M. There is every evidence that Reno
behaved with coolness and bravery, and Benteen with proper activity, during this battle; and still the report does not inform us as
to the exercise of those qualities earlier in the afternoon.
And where all this time was Custer? The trail, the heaps of dead
and the few accounts from eye-witnesses tell a plain story. He came
at high speed to a ford of the Little Horn which would have
brought him about the middle of the Indian camps. But in this
short space of time the Indians had vanquished Reno, and their
whole force were there to oppose him. He gave back from the ford,
and the Indians followed in overwhelming numbers. They were
now on the way he had come, and he continued his retreat along the
bluffs down the river.  He had in his command but four hundred
and twenty men, and the Indians must have numbered nearly two
thousand. Who can tell the agony of that terrible retreat and last
desperate struggle? When the command had reached a point nearly
a mile from the ford, Custer evidently saw that a sacrifice was necessary to save, if possible, a remnant of his command. To this end he
chose his brother-in-law, Lieutenant James Calhoun; with him was
Lieutenant Crittenden, their company having been selected to cover
the retreat.  They were found in line all dead together, the officers in their proper places in the rear, the company having died
fighting to the last man.
A little further on another desperate stand was made.  Then a




570


WESTERN WILDS.


mile from the scene of Calhoun's death, on the ridge parallel to the
stream, Captain Keogh's company made a stand to cover the retreat.
Keogh had evidently nerved himself for death. He was an old and
able soldier. He was an officer in the Papal service when Garibaldi
made war upon the Pope, and had served in the army of the Potomac
during the war. Down went he and his company, slaughtered in
position, every man maintaining his place and fighting desperately to
the last.
Custer, with the remnant of his command, had taken up his position on the next hill.  Curly, the Upsaroka scout, tells us that he
ran to Custer when he saw that the command was doomed, and offered to show him a way of escape. General Custer dropped his
head, as if in thought, for one moment, then suddenly jerking it up
again he stamped his foot and waving Curly away with his sword,
turned to rejoin his men. In that brief interval of thought he had
decided to die with his men rather than attempt to escape. There had
been a short lull in the fight, while the Sioux were maneuvering for a
better position. The firing now recommenced with more fury than
ever. Curly dashed into a ravine, let down his hair so as to resemble a Sioux as much as possible, mounted a horse, and joined in the
next charge; but watched his opportunity to put on a Sioux blanket,
and in the heat of the battle slipped away.
Custer had now made his last stand.  It was on the most commanding point of the ridge; and there with Captain Yates, Colonel
Cook, Captain Custer, Lieutenant Riley and thirty-two men of
Yates' command, he fought desperately to the last. One by one his
companions fell around him.  Nearer and nearer came the Sioux,
like hounds baying a lion, dashing around and firing into the command from all sides. Finally the whites made a sort of barricade of
their dead horses, and again for a few minutes held the savages at
bay.  Then Rain-in-the-Face, bravest Indian in the North-west,
gathered his most trusty followers for a hand to hand charge.
Custer fought like a tiger. With blood streaming from half a dozen
gaping wounds, he killed or disabled three of the enemy with his
saber, and when his last support was gone, as he lunged desperately
at his nearest enemy, Rain-in-the-Face kept his oath and shot the
heroic commander dead.
But the battle was not over. Captain Custer and Captain Smith
tried to cut their way back to the river, and in the ravine leading
that way twenty-six men were found dead.   The heroic remnant
made their last stand near the river, and there every man was found




T-HE NOBLE RED MAN.


571


dead in position, every officer in his place, every wound in front.
The awful tragedy ended with the day. General Custer lay dead on
the hill. Beside him lay Colonel Tom Custer, who enlisted as a
private at sixteen, was an officer at nineteen, and had been twice decorated for bravery in action.  In the same slaughter died two more
of the family. Boston Custer, forage-master to the Seventh Cavalry, had
sought the open air life of the plains to ward off a tendency to consumption which early manifested itself, He afoided a lingering
death by a heroic exit, fit subject for epic poem or thrilling romance.  And there was young "Autie" Reed, a mere boy, named
after General Custer himself, his nephew, son of the older sister, who
had, in fact, reared the General. It was cruel that he, too, should
die in this fearful massacre.  Autie was just out of school and was
eager to go on the plains "with Uncle Autie." To please the lad
Custer had him and a class-mate appointed herders, to drive the cattle accompanying the column. He had come with his uncle on this
last scout, and here met with his death, equally brave with the
bravest.  Lieutenant Jamnes Calhoun, the remaining member of this
relationship, had married Maggie E. Custer, the General's only
sister, in 1872; and in every emergency showed himself worthy of
adoption into this brave family. Cheered on by his voice, every
man of his company died in place. With him was Lieutenant Crittenden of the Twelfth Infantry, a mere boy, just appointed, but cool as
a veteran through all the terrible scene.  A whole brotherhood of
brave officers were cut off; for Custer had gathered around him a
circle of choice spirits, who admired his dash, and emulated his
bravery. There was the Adjutant, Col. Wm. W. Cook, a Canadian
by birth, who had enlisted in the Twenty-fourth New York Cavalry
at the beginning of the war, and risen to be its Colonel. And Captain Yates, who enlisted as a private at sixteen and worked his way up.
They used to call lhis company the "band-box troop," they were so
neat in their dress and equipments; but every man of them died at
his post. The last commander of all was Captain Algernon E. Smith,
who won renown at the storming of Fort Fisher; was wounded, and
for his bravery made brevet Major. But, perhaps, the saddest loss of
all was that of Lieutenant William Van W. Reily. He was of heroic stock. His father, an officer in the navy, went down with his
ship in the Indian Ocean a short time before William was born.
He left his widowed mother for this expedition, and died in company with all the. brave men who.then made their last fight. The




572


WESTERN WILDS.


night fell upon all these brave officers and three hundred men, lying
dead upon the field.
The full history of the battle is not yet known. This I say, despite
the fact that military reports have been made by the commanders,
and published by authority.  But they leave much unknown.  In
a quiet way there has been much crimination and recrimination;
one party has accused Reno and Benteen of cowardice or disobedience; the other,, including General Grant, has charged that Custer exceeded his orders and sacrificed his command. Without adbpting the extreme view of either side, this would seem to a civilian
about the correct state of the case: The regiment attacked a force of
Indians outnumbering the soldiers two or three to one, and well
armed, ready for fight, well posted, in broad day, when men and
animals were fatigued, and so insured defeat; then Reno and Benteen, seeing that retreat was a certainty, thought best to keep out
of the fight, perhaps supposing that Custer would, in like manner,
retreat after a brief skirmish. I can not see that victory would have
been possible in any event-no matter if the whole force had attacked at once, as originally intended.
This disaster, of course, spoiled the original plan. General Gibbon
came up with reinforcements, and the Indians moved. Successive
minor battles and skirmishes followed, by-which, though no one great
victory was gained, the hostiles were slowly worn out and scattered.
Many of the braves made their way back to the agencies, others
retreated to less accessible positions in the mountains, and Sitting
Bull, with a remnant, retreated into British America, whence, at this
writing, negotiations are pending to have him removed. The war in
that section is dying out, but a few words additional may be appropriate of the Indians in general. A glance at the map of Aborginal
America will show that very few of the Indian nations have retained
their original locations; but it must not be judged therefrom that
numerous tribes have become extinct. The Indian population of this
country at the landing of Columbus has been greatly exaggerated.
It is demonstrable that all that part of the United States east of the
Mississippi never contained half a million Indians; some authorities
say a quarter of a million. It is apparent at a glance that a country
like Ohio will sustain four hundred times as many people in the civilized as in the savage state. When men live upon game and the
spontaneous products of the earth, it must be a fertile land indeed
which will sustain an average of one person to the square mile.
When we pass to the Indian of the plains the original population was




THE NOBLE BED MAN.


573


sparser still. But there we find some of the races on the soil where
first discovered. The Sioux have steadily contracted their eastern
border, while maintaining their western border intact. But if, leaving
history we take tradition, we find that the Indian tribes have been
engaged for centuries in a series of migrations, the northern ones as a
rule slowly pushing southward. As all our mountain chains run
north and south, it follows that the people of this country can not
grow into distinct races as in Europe, where different climates and
soils are partitioned off by natural barriers. Hence the Indian, from
Manitoba to the Gulf of Mexico is one; hence, too, half a million
men of the West rose in arms to prevent the mouth of the Mississippi
being "held by an alien government." Of the Indian migrations,
the best authenticated are those of the Shoshonees and Sioux, which
are referred to in the following legend, as related to the interpreter
by Susuceicha, a Sioux chief:
"Ages past the Lacotas (or Dakotas, i. e., Sioux) lived in a land far
above the sun of winter.
"Here then the Shoshonee had all, but these basins were yet full of
water, and the buffalo ranged even to the Salt Land (Utah).
"Ages passed. The Shoshonees gave place to the Scarred Arms
(Cheyennes). The Lacotas came toward the sun and fought long with
tie Scarred Arms. A great party came far into the inner plain
(Laramie) and fell into a snare; all were killed by the Scarred Arms
but si-x; these hid in a hole in the mountain.
"They built a fire and dressed their wounds; they hoped to stay
many days till the Scarred Arms left the plain. But a form rose
from the dark corner of the cave; it was a woman-old as the red
mountain that was scarred by Waukan. Her hair was like wool; she
was feeble and wrinkled. She spoke:
"'Children, you have been against the Scarred Arms. You alone
live. I know it all. But your fire has waked me, and the full time
of my dream has come. Listen:
"'Long ago the Shoshonees visited the Lacotas; the prairie took in
the blood of many Lacota braves, and I was made captive. The
Shoshonees brought me here, but I was not happy. I fled. I was
weak. I took refuge in this cave.
"' But look! Where are the Shoshonees?  The Lacotas will soon
know them, and bring from their lodges many scalps and medicine
dogs. They have fled before the Scarred Arms. One-half crossed
the snow hills toward sunset; the other went toward the sun, and now
hunt the buffalo east of the Ispanola's earth lodges. But my eyes




574


WESTERN WILDS.


were sealed for ages till my people should come. The Scarred Arms
have long thought this land their own, but it is not. Waukantunga
gives it to the Lacotas; they shall possess the land of their daughter's
captivity. But why wait ye? Go gather your warriors and attack
the Scarred Arms. Fear not, their scalps are yours.'
"The warriors did return. They found the Scarred Arms at the
foot of the mountain, and drove them to the South. Our grateful
braves then sought the mountain to reverence the medicine woman,
who told them so many good things. But woman and cave were
gone. There was only a cleft in the mountain side from which came
a cold stream of water. Then the Lacotas made peace with the
Scarred Arms. Each year our warriors visit the Shoshonees for scalps
and medicine dogs, and each of our braves, as he passes the old
woman's spring, stops to quench his thirst and yield a tribute of veneration."
The Shoshonecs not only have a legend answering to this, but name
the various times when the Comanches, Arapahoes, and Apaches
seceded frbm the main body. Thus this great colony of the Athabascan race, slowly moving southward, has sent off branches right and
left, from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande and Gulf of California.
It would surprise some people who have been indignant over the
death of Custer and his companions to learn how small, comparatively,
is the number of hostile Indians. A strip of 500 miles wide, from
the Missouri to the Pacific, is rarely visited by hostiles; and at no
time for the past ten years have more than one-fifth of the race been
in arms or even threatening. All the border States except Texas are
free from hostiles. Of the nine Territories only three have been seriously troubled since 1867, and the three Pacific States have had even
a longer exemption. Within that time Indian hostilities have been
confined to three districts. First, and greatest, is that strip of mountain, forest, and desert including all Northern Wyoming, South-eastern
and Eastern Montana, and a small portion of Western Dakota. Next
are the highlands of Western Texas, raided by the Comanches and
their allies; and lastly that part of New Mexico and Arizona dominated by the Apaches. To judge how contemptible a performance
an Indian war is, how small the glory in proportion to the aggravation, be it noted that the whole Apache race numbers less than 8,000,
and can not possibly mount 2,000 warriors.
If it be decided that the 300,000 Indians in the United States (or
rather the 200,000 wild ones) are to " die off," then by all means let a
"feeding policy " be pursued; it is so much cheaper to kill them by




THE NOBLE RED.MANY.                  575
kindness than by war. Since 1860 the average cost of killing Indians
has been about $500,000 each. One-tenth that amount would stuff one
to death. If, I say, the theory of final extermination be adopted, the
most Christian and, by all odds, the cheapest plan would be this: Let
central depots be established along the Pacific Railway and at other
accessible points, and give general notice that every Indian who will
come there and live shall have all the bread, meat, coffee, sugar,
whisky and tobacco he can consume. The last man of them would be
dead in ten years, and at a cost not exceeding twenty per cent. of the
killing price. Since the Mormons began the feeding policy with their
nearest Indian neighbors the latter have died off much faster than
when at war. They can't stand petting any more than a rabbit.




4


CHAPTER XXXV.
TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
"YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy and pnrsue
with eagerness the phantom" of an ideal civil state, in which government shall regulate every thing according to the moral law, examine
the history of four Territories, and see how little mere written constitutions and laws have to do with the moral character or destiny of a
people. Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona are organized on
substantially the same Organic Act; there is not difference enough
between the congressional acts creating the four to predict therefrom
any difference in the local institutions. Yet Arizona is a free republic and Wyoming the same, with "modern improvements;" while
New Mexico is a plutocracy, in which a dozen families rule the State,
and Utah the most despotic theocracy on earth. Perhaps I should
say of Utah, has been, for we can now boast of better things. Incidentally Utah and Wyoming have given us some valuable hints as
to the practical working of woman suffrage; and though the advocates of that system will doubtless insist that the experiment has not
been tried under proper conditions, I fancy we can deduce therefrom
some general principles which will apply in all places.
The adoption of woman suffrage in Utah was the most complete
burlesque, as well as the neatest trick, ever perpetrated in American
politics. It gave the Mormon priesthood a double opportunity-to
throw ridicule on their opponents in Congress, and gain a fresh lease
of power against the fast encroaching Gentiles at home. The history
of the movement is briefly as follows: Among the many schemes
introduced into Congress from time to time for the solution of the
Mormon problem, was one brought forward early in 1869, by Hons.
S. C. Pomeroy and G. W. Julian, in the Senate and House respectively, to grant the right of suffrage to the women of Utah, that they
might vote down polygamy. Their reasoning upon the subject was
nearly identical with that of our honored Bishop Simpson and many
others, viz.: That women have by nature so much more moral purity
than men that they would, if allowed, enact legislation to shut up the
saloons and abolish many other social evils. That class of reasoners
(576)




TERRITORIAL GO VERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 577


assume that a state of society could exist in which the women would be
so far independent of the men that they could and would adopt a
scheme of civil polity opposed to the wishes of a majority of the men,
or having adopted, enforce it.
The proposition is briefly this: Men are first to be converted to a
belief in woman suffrage, and elect a legislature to adopt it; the
women, thus "elevated," are in turn to choose a legislature that will
elevate men by making them moral and temperate by law. Man is to
hand over half his political power to woman, in order that woman
may turn on him and use that power to make him do right. The
genius who lifted himself over the stile by his own boot-straps was
the originator of this philosophy. It rivals that conception of
Hindoo astronomy, in which the flat earth rests on the back of a
snake, the snake on the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise-well, to
complete the parallel, let us suppose the tortoise reaches around and
hangs on by his bill to the edge of the earth. That a majority of the
women of any commonwealth should oppose a majority of the men,
and enforce a legal polity in opposition to the latter, is as clearly impossible as that something should be based on nothing, and weakness
vanquish strength.
These bills were looked upon with contempt by the Mormons; but
in the closing months of 1869, the opening of silver mines seemed
likely to bring a great influx of miners into Utah, and the Mormon
leaders were alarmed for the continuance of their power. About
this time, Hon. Tom Fitch, of Nevada, was the Mormon champion
in the House, and his law partner, Mr. Mann, Secretary of Utah,
and acting Governor in the absence of Hon. J. W. Shaffer. They soon
taught the Saints a new lesson in political chicanery: that the adoption of woman suffrage would turn the tables nicely upon their enemies, make them friends. among Eastern reformers, and, above all,
double their vote against the fast-increasing Gentiles. The bill was
pushed through the Territorial Legislature at once and signed by
acting Governor Mann, against the protest of Governor Shaffer, and
all the resident Federal officials and Gentiles. It is claimed that
Mann had previously agreed not to sign it.
Owing to the varying proportions of the sexes, in the two classes,
woman suffrage would double the Mormon vote, while it would
scarcely increase the Gentile vote twenty per cent., even if all the
Gentile ladies voted-a thing that seldom or never happens.  But
the first election, August, 1870, was not thought important.  The
new-comers were not yet naturalized, and the Gentile vote fell a
37




578


WESTERN WILDS.


little short of two thousand. Hence the Mormon women were not
called upon, being considered rather as a. reserve force. But in 1871
it was feared the increased
number of (xentiles might
slip in an official somewhere,
and the word went forth
from the Tabernacle, repeated in all the ward meetings,
"Utah expects every Mormon woman to do her duty."
And the most careful observation, with all the inquiry
we could make from one end'
of the Territory to the other,
failed to show a single Mormon woman who had not
voted precisely as the priesthood dictated. Quite a number of men revolted and
voted as they pleased; bkt
every woman took the ballot
prescribed by her spiritual
adviser. No observing
statesman would have predicted any thing else. If
the "Subjection of Women "
(J. Stuart Mill) has application anywhere in America,
it is in Utah; and in every
ward the sickening sight was
witnessed of polygamists
marching their women to
the polls, by twos, threes
and dozens, with ballots to
perpetuate their own degradation. The male citizens
of Utah over twenty-one
years are set down (1870) at
"GIANTESS," BIG GEYSER OF THE YELLOWSTONE. 10,147, and presumably the
female voters are slightly less; but the Mormon vote alone exceeded
20,000. This contrast brings us to a new point. By the voting law




TERRITORIAL GO VERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 579


of Utah all citizens "having attained their majority" are made
voters; by an older law, majority for both sexes is put at twenty-one,
with the proviso that all married people are to be considered as having attained their majority. Under these two provisions it is estimated that 2,000 married girls and boys, between the ages of fourteen
and twenty-one, are now voters-a large percentage of these girls
being polygamous wives, or, in Utah language, "second women.'
For instance, Bishop Budge, of Cache, had in 1870 one wife who
gave her age as " nearly sixteen," and she was then nursing a child of
her own five months old! The law also provides that a woman married to a native or naturalized citizen is thereby naturalized. For
aught one can see in the. law, a bishop might land ten girls from
England to-day, marry them to-night, and vote them to-morrow. If
any thing were needed to clap the climax of absurdity in Utah elections, these statutes would furnish it.
The uniformity with which the Mormon women sustained polygamy,
is an interesting bit of evidence touching that "moral reform," which,
as some assure us, women are to introduce into politics. But in one
respect it is in Utah as everywhere else: men who are mean enough
to do so can always control their wives' and daughters' votes, while
men who are too generous for such action control them all the more
by the constraint of affection-provided, always, there be no strong
influence by priestly advisers. Whether it would be profitable to
introduce the Catherine Gaunts and Elizabeth Tiltons into politics as
well as social life, is a question that will bear thinking on. Fifth Avenue would never drive her women to the polls to carry a favorite measure, but the Five Points would; and in all our cities this "reform"
would simply double the political power of the dangerous classes with
small hope of a corresponding gain to the moral and conservative.
Just before the occurrences above cited, bills had been introduced
into Congress for the suppression of polygamy, and, according to
Mormon tactics, which they call "fighting the devil with fire," they
at once set their women to work to defeat these measures. Grand
mass meetings of women were called; the wives of leading apostles
attended with prepared speeches and resolutions ready cut and dried,
announcing the unalterable affection of Mormoxi women for their
religion and distinctive social custom, their resolution to live in it,
and, if need should be, to die for it, and protesting against any action
by Congress.
It is a well known fact that one woman, a fourth wife or " third
woman," delivered a flaming speech against the Cullom Bill and in




580


WESTERN WILDS.


favor of polygamy, and on her way home expressed to a Gentile lady
her disgust at the institution.
"Why, then, take such action?" was the natural question.
"Why, what else can we do?" was the reply. "We are here and
in it, and can't help it now; we must make the best of it, for the sake
of the children."
There is a volume of philosophy hidden in this reply. Let their
condition be what it may, polygamy does give a sort of half respectability to their offspring; and it is absurd to suppose they would vote
for any law which would put the bar sinister on their children, and
leave themselves in the legal condition of cast off mistresses.
The next opportunity for woman suffrage to work the "great
reform" in Utah, was when the proposition was made to admit the
Territory as a State, on condition that it adopt a constitution forever prohibiting polygamy, bigamy, and Brighamy. This was the
neatest trick they ever devised, and is calculated to give one a high
opinion of the astuteness of the Mormon leaders. They would nave
adopted such a constitution promptly, and then ignored the antipolygamy clause; but all officials being Mormons, this would have
enabled them  to "' squeeze out" the Gentiles and apostates most
effectually.  That class of theorists who think that we only need
good laws to make men temperate and moral, and women virtuous
and happy, may be surprised and pleased to learn that polygamy is
just as much contrary to law in Utah as it would be in Ohio. There
is no marriage act in the Territorial statutes; and, besides the congressional law of 1862 against polygamy, Utah has a singularly severe
law against adultery; and a Gentile who should take two wives would
be punished as quickly as in the States, and much more severely.
The danger involved in a Mormon State was so great that the
Gentiles worked as I never knew them to work before, forwarding
remonstrances against it with several thousand signatures.  A few
liberal Mormons signed these petitions, among them forty women.
The Mormon delegate at Washington sent back a list of these names,
and the Deseret News published them, with the customary Mormon
threat, that when their day of triumph came "this people would remember the traitors who had joined those who are fighting against
God and His people." The ecclesiastical machinery was at once set
in motion, and each district was canvassed by elders and ward
teachers to call the signers to account.  Recantations, denials, and
confessions followed rapidly; nearly all the Mormons who had signed
the protests plead the "Baby Act," that they did not understand the




TERRITORIAL GO VERNMENT AND WOIMA iSUFFRAGE. 581


full import of what they had signed, and very few stood firm. These
few were at once "cut off."  The error of those who imagine that
in the cause of moral reform women are any braver or more persistent
than men, was fully made manifest in the issue.
But the cause had a much fairer trial in the election of August,
1872, when the Church nominated Apostle George Q. Cannon, the
husband of four "women."  His opponent was General G. R. Maxwell, who served with distinction in the late war. Not one Mormon
woman voted for the law-abiding man against the polygamist. Married girls and boys, unnaturalized foreigners and other disfranchised
classes, voted at will; and, out of a total population of 90,000, the
Mormon vote was 24,000. The Gentiles east a vote of over 3,000.
But the wisest men can not tell what the legal vote of Utah is.
Apostle Cannon, living in violation of national law, a man whose
social theory and practice is an insult to womanhood, now occupies a
seat in Congress by the votes of eleven thousand women!
The elections of 1875 illustrate another (and perhaps the most important) evil in the system. In Salt Lake City the Gentiles cast for
Mayor a vote of 1,700, of which one or two hundred, perhaps, were
cast by women. The Mormon vote was double that of the Gentiles,
and at least half of it was cast by women. It is claimed that on an
exclusively male vote the Gentiles would have chosen the city officials,
but I think it very doubtful. In time, however, the Gentiles will
doubtless have a majority of males, while the Mormons will have twothirds of the vote.  Here will be a local government with a twothirds majority of the votes, but a decided excess of the physical
power against it.  Of what account will such a government be in
the case of a civil tumult between parties? It will have votes and
authorized officials, but be without strength; it will be the mere
skeleton of a government, a woman's government purely, without the
physical basis which is a necessity of the civil structure. In Tooele
County the Gentile voters-almost exclusively men, and men of firstclass physical vigor at that-proved to be in a clear majority of a
hundred or so over both male and female Mormons. Suppose, however, the latter had had two hundred more women to vote; then
should we have had a clear majority of votes on the one side, and a
three-fourths majority of the physical strength, the executive power
of government, on the other. Obviously such a government would
be merely strong enough to irritate, and not strong enough to command. Just the same would be the case in Ohio if, as our reformers
claim, all the women, or nearly all, should vote for a prohibitory law,




582


WESTERN WILDS.


and a majority of the men against it; the law would have the votes
and the opposition have the power.  A majority of men means a
majority of the governing strength, of the power to execute as well
as make laws; a majority of women may or may not mean any such
thing. A majority of women is no stronger, as far as the needs of
government are concerned, than a minority.  If the majority of
women would vote for and enact just such laws as the majority of
men would vote for and enact without them, then should we have
no particular change and no reform from that source. If, however,
they voted for and adopted laws and policies which a majority of men
would have opposed, then should we have the votes and law on one
side, and the strength on the other. Such is now the fact in two or
three sections of Utah. If the whole Territory were in the same condition, the legally elected government could be overthrown almost
without an effort. As it is, in those localities, the outs would be able
to set the ins at defiance whenever they saw fit to do so.
Is there no moral to be drawn from the unanimity with which the
women of each class vote with the men? Our theorists may urge in
reply that the instance is not a fair one; that the women of Utah are
degraded, and not free to vote at will. But they are no more degraded than the men. Both suffer the results of an unnatural system,
and though both are far below a correct social plane, yet the relative
positions of the sexes is just the same there as elsewhere. The identity of interests between them in each class, as far as those interests
can be established or changed by law, is too fixed for the one sex to
vote generally against the wish of the other. If the women of Utah,
or even a bare majority of them, oppose polygamy, it is bound to
perish ere long, sooner than law can crush it; if they favor it, their
vote of course will go to strengthen it. The mutual dependence of
men and women is an order with very rare exceptions, and even those
exceptions are such as must inevitably prevent the women from enforcing a legal dictum. Husbands, fathers and brothers are divisible
into two classes-the chivalrous and kindly, the large majority, who
would disdain to dictate the vote of wife, daughter or sister; and the
few brutal and tyrannical, who would coerce the women within their
power in this, as they do in every thing else. And similarly of the
ladies-those whose lot is cast with the first class could have no
interests contrary to those of their male companions, while the few
"subjected" women, though they might need a free vote, would certainly never have it.  Not that such men would generally maltreat
their wives for political differences, and so come within the just cog



TERRITORIAL GO VERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 583


nizance of law. A great fool, as well as a great brute, must that man
be who can find no safer and more certain way of subjecting a woman
than by violence.  Of that small number who tyrannize over their
wives, those who do so by brute strength are not as. one in ten; they
do not, in our state of civilization, make one in ten thousand of the
male population; and if these were all we had to consider, we could
easily settle the matter by a just and judicious hanging. Subjection
is easy far short of physical violence. And as to the just and generous, every man of experience knows, that with ninety-nine women
out of a hundred, he who grants most and most persistently refuses the
exercise of power, gains the most complete ascendency; for it is an
empire over the mind as well as the body. Let the state of society be
what it may, women must trust men in every department of life. A
Mormon woman is just as much in the power of a Mormon man as a
Gentile woman in that of a Gentile man; no more and no less. They
must trust men to work for them, guard them, fight for them, love,
marry, and take care of them, just as much in one state of society as
another; and, as these things make up nine hundred and ninety-nine
thousandths of the affairs of life, it would seem that the little remnant
dependent on voting is not worth a refusal to trust.
When we pass to Wyoming we find a totally different set of facts,
but by a different road they conduct us to the same conclusion. Utah
women are mostly foreign-born, those of Wyoming natives; the
former, as a rule, grossly ignorant, the latter of exceptional intelligence. Wyoming is a community of the widest social and intellectual
freedom, while Utah is despotically ruled by a priesthood; and in
nearly all respects the contrast is equally great.  Over the green
plains and through the wild valleys of Wyoming, is scattered a race
of hardy freemen who own no civil allegiance to a church; along
her crystal mountain streams, and in her gloomy canfons, bivouac a
thousand hunters whose law is necessarily made on occasion, their
courts organized and dissolved by a vote of those present.
Wyoming, as a separate Territory, was a creation of the Union
Pacific Railroad.  Except for the Sweetwater mining region, and a
few military posts, its entire white population depended for years on
the railroad towns.  When the road entered this region it was a
part of Dakota Territory, but Cheyenne was eight hundred miles from
the capital by the nearest route; and, for nearly a year. there was practically no government, except as organized for the occasion by the railroad followers.  Cheyenne, Sherman, Laramie, Benton, Rawlins and
Green River and Bear River cities, each in its turn, organized munici



584


5WVESTERI WILDS.


palities; their history was a record of turbulence and disorder, and in
no long time even the pretense of civil government yielded to vigilance organizations.  Early in 1869, Congress, on information that
the region had at least 10,000 inhabitants, passed the Organic Act for
Wyoming; an election was
held at once, and the first
Legisl'ature passed an excellent code of laws, which
have required but little
change since. But it is obvious that written law can
not have the eftect here that
it has in an older commonwealth.  The whole area is
divided into five counties,
extending from the northern
to the southern boundary;
in the south end of each are
one or two trading towns, on
the railroad, the rest of the
country having few permanent settlers, or none. Twice
the size of Pennsylvania,
Wyoming has half the population of an average county;
and, of that half, not more
than one-tenth is made up of
women of voting age. Obviously, under the most favorable circumstances, civil
government could have no
such extended finctions as
in the States. All officers of
importance are appointed at
Washington-the Governor,
NIGHT BIVOUAC ON GREEN RIVER, WYOMING.  Secretary, District Judges,
Marshal, Commissioners, and some others.  Of the 98,000 square
miles in the Territory, not the twelfth part lies as low as 4,000 feet
above sea level, and the largest town contains no more than 2,500
people.
The entire number of women eligible as voters in Wyoming is




TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 585


reported all the way from 1,100 to 1,500. I think the latter number
entirely too great, but accept it as the basis of my notes. Woman suffrage in Springfield, Ohio, would be a much fairer test than here; for
Springfield has a population equal to that of Wyoming, and one-half
females. The social and moral statistics of the Territory may throw
a side light on the question.  The total white population is set at
18,000. Of these, 1,100 children are in school, and it is estimated
that there are enough out of school to make the entire number under
majority 2,000. This leaves 16,000 adults. Placing the women at
the largest number claimed, this leaves 14,500 adult males-ten
neen to one woman.   To suppose that this little handful of women
could work a moral revolution by their votes, in a wild, mountainous
country twice the size of Pennsylvania, is to credit them with superhuman powers. But there are other figures to subtract.
From the police reports I learn that Cheyenne contains thirty-five
saloons and forty-five prostitutes. Some place the last much higher;
but I only include those known openly as such, leaving out the " suspected."  Laramie has twenty-six saloons and twenty-five prostitutes.
This includes all beer-jerkers, variety girls, etc. But as the law has
pressed more severely on such houses in Laramie, it is said there is a
much larger number of "kept women," not publicly recognized. At
Evanston there are eight saloons and twelve prostitutes. This does
not include the "suspected" and "private," or the few polygamous
wives of the Mormons there. At Sweetwater, Hilliard, Fort Laramie,
and Rawlins, the proportion is said to be smaller; but out on the road
to the Black Hills a tent town has sprung up, inhabited entirely by
saloon-keepers and their "women."  To sum up, the figures show the
whole Territory to contain, at the lowest calculation, one hundred
saloons anid three hundred prostitutes. This includes one-fifth of the
female voters in the last class, and gives one saloon to a hundred and
eighty inhabitants.  Lest the reader should hastily judge Wyoming
to be a bad country, I will state that Salt Lake City, with only a little
greater population, contains at least an equal number of the " social
evils." Good and evil are strangely mingled in the new Territories,
and Wyoming has some of the finest society in America. Such being
the social statistics, what effect has woman suffrage had?
* Here it is proper to say that I visited every town in Wyoming, ex,
cept in the Sweetwater region, before the new system was adopted;
and most of them several times since. Besides consulting the records,
I have the personal statements of many residents; some in favor of
woman suffrage, scme opposed to it. First to be noted is the fact that




686


WESTERN WILDS.


the system has had no particular or permanent effect in regard to officeholding. When first adopted, one woman was elected Superintendent
of Public Instruction, and another appointed Justice of the Peace.
That ends the list. No woman has been chosen or nominated for
Delegate, Councilman, Representative, Police Judge, or any clerical
office. The offices are held by men just the same as before; and, as
far as I can learn, most women would rather vote for men than women.
Second-In the courts it made a slight change for a year or so;
women served on both grand and petit juries, and we were promised'a
renovation of society in consequence of their fine moral sense and
strictness in enforcing the law.  Nobody has any thing to say about
it now; but it seems reasonable to conclude that if the system had
worked well, it would not have been abandoned in a year or two and
never revived. One man only I found who would talk freely on this
point.  He was an enthusiastic Epicenist (believer in "no sex in
politics"), and served on one jury with five ladies. The testimony
was of a nature peculiarly disagreeable to ladies, and, from long sitting,
two of them got nervous and sick. The jury had to be locked up
seven hours. From natural causes this was very embarrassing; the
two ladies were very sick by the time a verdict was found, and the
whole matter was so horribly inconvenient that my informant declared
he would fly the Territory rather than again sit on a jury with women.
He still believes in women juries, "but only in certain cases, where
women are on trial, and their jury all women; think it would have
been right to try Mrs. Fair before a jury of women," etc.
Another Epicenist, a gentleman who has had experience in selecting
jurors, explains the failure to get more women jurors by the fact that
there are so few eligible.) The Territory only contains 1,500 women
old enough, and of these the following classes must be exempt from
the nature of the case: all nursing mothers, all pregnant women, all
with sick or very young children domanding their care, all delicate,
nervous or hysterical women, all of notoriously bad character, and all
who would be exempt for the same reasons as men. In any country
this would exclude nineteen out of twenty; in fact, it leaves only the
perfectly healthy unmarried women, and those married who have no
children, or are old enough to have a family grown up. There is not
one unmarried woman in a hundred who would sit on a jury if she
could help it; and, in this country, not more than one criminal case in
ten is fit for an unmarried woman to hear. My informant says there
are less than two hundred ladies in all Wyoming who are at once fit
and legally eligible for jury duty; but he is positive that in an old




TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 587


State, where there are as many women as men, no such difficulty could
arise. He forgets, however, that, as a country grows older, the number of cases in which women could not well act as jurors increases.
Imagine a respectable New York lady sitting as juryman on most
of the cases that are tried in that city-the Beecher case, for instance, where she would have been obliged to sit almost daily for four
months!
Another difficulty is the extra expense involved. It is found that
less than one-tenth of the sex, of lawful age, are ready for jury duty
at any one time; and that the cost of impanneling and keeping a
woman jury in session is more than ten times as great. These reasons, and many more of a delicate nature and unfit to be discussed,
caused Wyoming to discontinue woman juries after one trial. Friends
and opponents of the system equally admit, that in the present state
of society, it is impracticable. If, as claimed by the Epicenists, justice
to woman demands women on juries, then woman will not get justice
for some centuries to come. It's a pity, too; for if women could judge
women, we might occasionally get one convicted where the evidence
is overwhelming, a consummation now practically impossible in most
places west of the Missouri.
Third-It has made no noticeable difference in public morals,
though some insist that it has. Mrs. Post and Mrs. Arnold, leading
suffrage ladies in Cheyenne, both insist there has been a marked improvement in direct consequence of woman suffrage. Others say not.
I can only present my own opinion, after seeing the Territory in all
its stages of growth. If there has been any improvement since 1870,
when the women began to vote, I fail to see it; but am willing to
take their word for it. New countries generally improve after civil
government is organized; Colorado, without woman s'uffrage, has improved fastest of all the Territories.
Fourth-At the polls it is said to have one good effect-to produce
better order. The ladies usually come in a carriage, making a sort of
gala day of it, and the crowd treats them with the utmost respect. In
fact, one simply sees there what one sees every-where in America
when ladies are present-a decent respect for them. There have been
a few fights about ladies being challenged. The first young lady who
was challenged at Laramie dropped her ballot and began to cry, upon
which her escort "whaled away " at the man who challenged her vote,
and sent him into the ditch! After this had occurred a few times no
more ladies' votes were challenged, and in that respect they have the
advantage of men.




588


WTESTERN WILDS.


Fifth-Another marked effect has been to vastly increase the cost
of running for office. It seems the ladies may be divided into three
classes: a small number of the rather reserved, who never vote under
any circumstances; a larger class who always vote, and the great middle class, who vote or do not vote, just as it happens or just as they
may be solicited. The candidates must see to getting these out, and
carriage-hire is expensive. In fact, so great grew this evil, and so
much was it becoming a matter of money, that the ladies in 1875, in
full convention, protested against it, and declared they would walk to
the polls or not go at all. The ladies vote rather irregularly, voting at general elections, and neglecting the local or special elections.
At the election for delegate in 1874, at least three-fourths of the women
in the Territory voted; at the municipal election in December, probably not one in ten.
Sixth-As to its effect on the ladies themselves, there are almost as
many opinions as there are people in Wyoming. Most probably it
has had no effect at all, as, even did the suffrage possess some mysterious innate power of improvement, it has not been established there
long enough to produce noticeable effect. The women who go to the
Territories, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, have their characters fixed for good or evil before they arrive; they are generally of
decided characters and firm convictions, and it does not seem probable
that wielding so small a mite of political power could affect them either
way. The political power of prostitutes, which some have dreaded,
does not seem to be an imminent fact. " They only constitute one-fifth
of the voting women, and a candidate who should bid openly for their
support would certainly lose more than he would gain. Besides,
women of that class are, as a rule, utterly without any logical comprehension of how   political or municipal questions affect them, and
totally lacking in the faculty of organization. Social cohesion is
probably less among them than any other class of people; and a thousand of them thrown together in convention could not organize in
twenty-five years. As a rule they vote for or with their personal
friends, as good women do, and thus their vote is divided very much as
that of any other class. There is no law to license them in Wyoming, but the same result is attained by fining them once a month, it
being understood that if they cause no disorder, they are not to be
troubled till the next month.
Nor have there been those family disturbances which some anticipated. At least ninety-nine times out of a hundred, man and wife are
of the same politics. It is in this as in other things: a low, brutal




TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 589
man coerces his wife, by violence.; a high-toned and honorable man,
who disdains to usurp authority over his wife, does, in fact, govern
her tenfold more effectually by the constraint of affection.  Every
one must have observed that the honorable and generous man really
governs his wife (viragoes always excepted) far more than the domestic tyrant; for the former's is an empire over the soul and mind
as well as the body. The abused wife may sometimes swindle her
husband in the ballot, as in a hundred other ways, but the woman,
whose husband refuses the claim of power votes with him almost
universally.  The exceptions are said to balance about equally
between parties, and exist without trouble.  Mrs. A. B. Post is an
active Republican, her husband a Democrat; Mrs. Arnold is a Democrat, her husband a Republican; while the late Justice Esther Morris is a moderate Democrat. Judge Fisher thinks the system has resulted in a Republican gain; others think just the opposite.  The
legislature which passed this law-the first that sat-was unanimously
Democratic; but a Democratic legislature subsequently repealed it,
and the Governor's veto of the repeal was barely saved by the vote
of the Republicans in the council. So, honors are easy between the
two parties.
One other fact is evident: there is a strong tendency among the mass
of ladies to quietly drop the thing, and say no more about it, and it
requires all the energy of the few female politicians to bring them up
to the voting point. Another curious fact is that soldiers and officers
can not vote, but their wives and the laundresses attached to the regiments can, after remaining long enough. The law prescribes that
persons "enrolled in the military service" can not acquire a residence
by any length of time in the Territory in such service; but the ladies
attached to the camp, not being "enrolled in military service," come
within the law, and vote at the nearest precinct. Thus it happens
that a military post in Wyoming is represented entirely by its petticoats, and a very good representation, too, being neat but not gaudy,
nice, rich, and costly. In conclusion, I think it safe to say that the
system has equally disappointed friends and foes-neither the good
nor the evil predicted having resulted. And, from the evidence obtained, I am forced to the same conclusion with an old friend, who has
been in Cheyenne ever since the town was laid out: " Woman suffrage
in Wyoming has resulted in making every thing just as it was before,
only a little more so."
So much for a new Territory. But when we compare the indifferent results in Wyoming with the actual wrong done in Utah, then




590


WESTSERN~ WILDS.


consider the situation in the older States, we must deduce this moral:
If New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio should adopt woman suffrage,
there must by all means be coupled with it a law imposing heavy
penalties upon all women who refuse to vote. If the female rabble
of the slums is allowed to vote, the good women must be compelled to;
otherwise the consequences will be disastrous. In most of our cities
the good men must even now strain every nerve to prevent the municipality from falling into the hands of thieves and demagogues. Reenforce the "dangerous classes" with the votes of their women, which
they could and would control with ease, without a corrresponding reenforcemert on the other side, and nothing but ruin could result. And
in the rural regions the respectable farmer's wife or daughter must not
be allowed to plead fatigue, or preoccupation, or the distance to the
polls; for there the rabble, of both sexes, will make election-day a
grand holiday. The good women must turn out, and face the rabble,
as best they can. We do not see this evil in Wyoming, for there are no
cities there, and consequently no city rabble. And in the end, if the
law be made stringent, as suggested, we shall have things pretty much
as they are; for the real character of a government depends on the direction of its executive force, and that force is, by an irrepealable law
of nature lodged in the hands of men. No law that can be put on the
statute books is worth the paper it is written on, unless supported by
a large majority of the able-bodied males. If it is a law restricting
personal liberty as to any social custom, then it must have the support
of four-fifths of the males of sixteen years and upward, or it is a foredoomed failure. Men never execute their own laws if they do not like
them; they certainly would not do more for women's laws. The men
of any country could enslave the women any day, if they chose to do
so; and women's votes will always be at the dictation of men, if the
latter choose to exercise their power.
He that in the beginning made them male and female, gave man both
the power and the will to govern, and then added: "He shall rule
over thee." And when I see that votes are worse than useless without
physical power to second them, I seem to see that the Hebrew myth
is the natural statement of an unchangeable law. In the brief experience of Utah and Wyoming I see only a confirmation of the theory
that by the law of nature the organization, maintenance, and direction
of civil government is the exclusive province of man. That there
have been great female soldiers, I know; but no one can justly regard
them as women any more than we regard as men those accidental creatures with reedy tenor voice, who can spin, sing, sew, and embroider




TERRITORIAL GOVERNMIENT AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 591


with the taste of a lady.. Once or twice in a century, perhaps, appears
a Joan of Arc, a Maid of Saragossa, or a "Knight of the Green
Plume;" and rather more frequently one of our border women will
take horse and gun for the chase or Indian fight, with the courage
and hardihood of a man. But they are no more to be udged by the
ordinary rules, nor ordinary women by their standard, than ordinary
men are to be ruled and guided like the emasculated creatures above
referred to, who still wear the bifurcated as a compliment to that sex
of which they once aspired to be members. At times, too, one finds
a thoroughly masculine soul in a female body, as often as the reverse;
but such beings, though ever so beautiful, excite in our minds no other
emotions than those an ascetic scholar might feel at sight of the cold
and icily regular features of a marble Diana.
True it is,.by the eye of faith I can dimly discern a distant future
when the world will be governed by morals and intellect alone; when
civil government will not as now be " organized force intelligently directed for the suppression of crime;" when women will need no protection, and soldiers, constables, sheriffs, and policemen march only in
the pages of history, and be unknown because unneeded. Then voting will need no physical force to back it, a ballot will not be an implied pledge to use the bullet, if necessary, and woman suffrage will
be as logical and natural as male suffrage. But when that time does
come I fancy we shall not elect our rulers by ballot; for One shall
rule by Divine Right, and voting, law-making and law-enforcing,
with other necessary evils, pass away like morning mists before the
full blaze of the "Sun of Righteousness."




10 CHAPTER XXXVI.


THE DEAD PROPHET.
As I wrote the last lines of the preceding chapter there came a dispatch from Utah: a Brigham Young is dead."  To Americans generally this is simply a bit of interesting news, for this man was, in the
language of Elijah Pogram, "one of the most remarkable men of our
country." But what Gentile can realize the awful import of that message to the 75,000 orthodox Mormons of Utah; to the 4,000 Saints in
Great Britain; to the converts in Scandinavia, and the "stakes of
Zion" in Arizona, Idaho and the Sandwich Islands  In 1870 there
were, among European races, but three persons who were at once
heads of Church and State: the Pope, Queen Victoria atnd Brigham
Young. The British Church is not yet "disestablished," but the
Pope has lost his temporal power and Brigham Young is dead.  It
was said, a few years since, anent the Beecher and Clendenning trials
and similar cases, " This is a hard year for parsons." Similarly:
This is certainly a bad decade for theocrats.  We may yet live to see
the Church of EnglanxI divorced from the civil power.
I am no believer in that evasive maxim: De mortuis nil nisi bonurn.
Certainly not, when the dead are public characters. ' The dead were
once alive, and moral responsibility is not evaded by the mere physical
incident of death; and living rulers must learn to act with the assured conviction that they will be judged after death.  Of all, therefore, whichl the foregoing pages contain regarding Brigham Young I
have nothing to recant; it was my candid conviction when I wrote
it-it is my assured belief now.  That it will be the unanimous verdict of posterity, I have not a shadow of doubt. It was not written
without overwhelming evidence to support it; revelations yet to be
made in Utah, and hastened by Brigham's death, will only add to
that evidence. I merely ask that the reader will, in previous chapters,
substitute the past tense for the present where Brigham is mentioned.
It only remains to add a few incidents in the life of this remarkable
adventurer; his person and character have been sufficiently described
in Chapter VI.
Brigham Young was born June 1, 1801, in Whithinghlam, Wind(592)




THE DEAD PROPHET.


593


ham County, Vermont. His father was an old Revolutionary soldier,
of Massachusetts, the parent of six sons and five daughters.  This
whole family embraced Mormonism soon after Brigham did. The
father died in one of the early migrations of the Mormons in Missouri; the sons and daughters lived to go into polygamy in Utah, and
become the parents of large families.  None of Brigham's brothers
ever evinced any special talent for any thing. Phinehas and Lorenzo
Dow Young were barely mediocre; " Uncle "John " Young for many
years was Patriarch of the Church, but was a mere puppet as pulled
by Brigham; Joseph sometimes preached, but with no particular
force, and the fifth brother was of so little consequence that his name
is scarcely known in Utah.  Nor did any of them acquire property to
any great extent; at least two were so poor they had to accept assistance-it might be called charity-from Brigham.  The sisters are
equally obscure. Whatever Brigham's talent was, he alone of the
family possessed it.  I have repeatedly talked with his nephews and
grandchildren concerning him; but his career was as much a mystery
to them as to the 3Gentile world.  Oscar Young, Brigham's oldest
child in polygamy, is now a thorough-going Gentile, and a frank,
outspoken gentleman; but to him, as to strangers, his father's real
nature was a sealed book.
Early in life Brigham married, and was early left a widower with
two daughters, both now living in polygamy in Utah.  Mormonism
first took form as a religion in 1830, and among the first preachers
sent out was Samuel H. Smith, youngest brother of the Prophet Joseph. He met and exhorted Brigham, and almost "converted " him.
A little later, in 1832, he gave in his adhesion to the new faith, and
was baptized by Elder Eleazar Miller. He at once set out for
Kirtland, whither the young church was gathering; came upon Joe
Smith while the latter was chopping in the woods, and, according to
their mutual account, was at once blessed exceedingly. Joseph pronounced him a man of wonderful powers, gifted of God for the
furtherance of the faith, and added that he would "one day lead the
Church."  The anti-Brighamite Mormon sects add that Joseph also
said: "And he will lead it to hell." He should have said so if he.did not, for it has proved very near the truth.
Brigham had previously quit farm life to. become a painter and
glazier, and he now exercised his trade upon the Temple at Kirtland, glazing the windows with his own hands. It was, soon discovered by Joseph that Brigham was the most practical of all his converts; and, as that sort of a man was badly needed, he advanced rap88




594


WESTERN WILDS.


idly in rank. The new church was now on the high tide of furious
fanaticism. The accounts given by a score of eye-witnesses would be
utterly incredible, did we not know from undoubted history, what
such religious mania tends to. Visions, dreams, miracles, speaking
in tongues and the interpretation of tongues followed in constant
succession. In their "experience meetings" the rule was for each
brother to rise and " utter whatsoever sounds came in his mind," the
speaker being assured that "God will make it a language."  Some
men professed to see the Saviour and various holy persons; others
ran through the woods shouting and praying; some fell into trances,
and many recited rhapsodies or delivered prophecies. Through all
this madness, Brigham, it is generally agreed, carried a level head.
It was then supposed that every Saint had the gift of prophecy, but
Joe Smith soon returned from a preaching tour in Canada and the
Eastern States and rectified that matter. It was announced that he
alone held the true prophetic gift. The general madness subsided;
several converts apostatized, and by their statements, published
broadcast, brought great scandal on the Church.
The Saints now established a co6perative mill, store and bank; for,
as some wealthy men had joined, they were able to collect some
$20,000 in cash. Meanwhile the neighboring people held a meeting
and deputized one of their number to go hack to Joe Smith's old
home in New York, and collect evidence as to his character. Sixtysix of his old neighbors joined in an affidavit that they "would not
believe Joseph Smith or any of his gang under oath." It was also
abundantly proved that the Book of Mormon was a weak rehash of a
weak "historical novel," written by one Solomon Spaulding. But
such evidence has no effect on the class of minds caught by Mormonism. Troubles increased between the Saints and their neighbors;
finally mill, store and bank failed, and Smith and Rigdon ran away
to Missouri to escape the sheriff.  All this time Brigham labored in
his steady way, and was known among the brethren as " hard-working
Brigham Young."
The Saints had made their first settlement in Missouri, at Independence, in the spring of 1831, but were driven across to Clay County in
the fall of 1833.  The people of the latter county "requested" them
to move again; so they settled in Ray and Caldwell, built the town
of Far West, and eventually got political control of that section.
Then trouble arose, of course. When the Mormons elected the officials there was no justice for Gentiles, and the latter commenced fighting. Brigham had meanwhile been advanced to the rank of an apostle,




THE DEAD PROPHET.


595


and was credited with having added many hundred converts to the
Church. In the late autumn of 1838 open war broke out. Enraged at
some of their neighbors the Mormons drove them from their homes, and
eventually burned the town of Gallatin. They had previously driven
all dissenters away from Far West. ID the first regular battle that ensued Edward Patton, an apostle, was killed; and, on the trials following,
Orson Hyde, President of the Twelve, turned State's evidence. This
left Brigham the senior apostle, and therefore President. But the
battle went against the Saints. Joseph and Hyrum, and nearly all the
leaders, were captured and imprisoned; Brigham and others escaped to
Illinois, and in the winter of 1838-39 all the lay members followed
them.  Joseph and the others escaped early in 1839, and the Church
was once more organized, with Quincy, Illinois, as head-quarters.,
Dr. Isaac Galland at that time owned a large tract of land at the
head of Des Moines Rapids, on the Mississippi, part of which he
deeded to Joe Smith, on condition that he would settle his people
there, and build a city. Forthwith Joe had a revelation that that was
to be the great " Stake of Zion " for the present; sold city lots at high
prices, and grew very wealthy, while the magic city of Nauvoo sprang
up. Brigham went to England; reorganized the British mission; established the Millennicti Star, which has ever since been the foreign
organ of the Saints; did wonders as a missionary, and came home in a
year with seven hundred and sixty-nine converts. Thereafter he stood
very close to the Prophet. But among those converts was a pretty
English girl, named Martha Brotherton, whom Brigham wanted for a
spiritual wife; she rebelled, apostatized, revealed the inner workings
of the Church, and thus set up a popular outcry against the Saints.
Polygamy was regularly established-so says the revelation-in 1843;
and early in 1844 a paper was started in Nauvoo by some opponents
of the system, called the Expositor. It was "' abated as a nuisance " by
the Saints, for which Smith and his brother Hyrum were arrested;
and while in jail they were murdered by a mob, June 27, 1844.
The Church was now without a head. Brigham, as President of the
Twelve Apostles, claimed that they should govern till God raised up
a leader. Sidney Rigdon claimed the right of succession, because he
stood next in rank to the dead Prophet; William Smith claimed it as
the only surviving member of the Smith family; and Strang, Brewster,
Hedrick, C0utler, and others put in their claims. But Brigham circumvented them all. Rigdon had a revelation that the wealthy members
led by him were to found a new " stake " for the others to gather to;
then the Church would grow till able to conquer all the kingdoms of




596


WESTERN WILDS.


the earth; he would lead a party to rebuild Jerusalem, "and stop at
London on the way home to pull the nose of Little Vic!"  He was
brought to trial as an impostor and disturber, Brigham acting as
principal accuser; was "cut off, condemned, and delivered to the buffetings of Satan for a thousand years." About-a hundred voted " not
guilty." These were at once brought to trial and " cut off." It was
then moved, and unanimously carried, that all who should hereafter adhere to Rigdon should be "cut off." The church led off by Rigdon has
long since gone to pieces, and he died not long ago near Pittsburgh.
All the other factions have broken up, and the remnants reorganized as
"Josephites," under the lead of young Joe Smith; except that a small
branch exists at Independence, Mo., and in that vicinity. The main
bedy who followed the Twelve-Brigham being then merely President
of the Twelve-were called " Twelveites; " but are now considered the
Mormon Church proper.
It was not long till Brigham was exercising all the power of the
apostolic quorum, the other eleven soon sinking into mere lieutenants.
He finished the Temple, hurried the people through their "endowments," in which they were bound to the Church by the most terrible
oaths, and hastened the preparations for departure. In January, 1846,
he and eight of the apostles started westward, and with them 2,000
of the people. Others went as fast as they could; by May, 16,000
Mormons had left, and not more than 2,000 remained in Nauvoo.
But an irregular war with their neighbors went on; and in September, 1846, a body of 1,000 or 1,500 militia besieged the city for three
days, and finally expelled the remaining Mormons at the point of the
bayonet. The Saints spent the fall of 1846 and ensuing winter and
spring in a line of camps in western Iowa and eastern Nebraska; and
as soon as possible Brigham started with one hundred and forty-three
men to hunt a location "in some valley in the Rocky Mountains."
Before leaving Illinois he had received a copy of Fremont's Report
from Governor Thomas L. Ford, who suggested one of the large valleys of the Wasatch as their best location. The pioneer party entered
Salt Lake Valley the 23d of July, but Brigham had remained in the
caflon and did not come in till the next day. Reaching the present
site of the city he exclaimed: " This is the place," and ordered a halt
at once. Prayer was offered, a plow was lifted from the wagon, and
a considerable garden-spot plowed before night. A heavy thundershower came on that day-a very rare occurrence at that time in the
Great Basin in summer, and a good omen to the Saints. They put in
a crop, from which those who stayed gathered potatoes about the size




THE DEAD PROPHET.


597


of chestnuts, and other things in proportion. Brigham returned that
autumn to Council Bluffs, and at a conference held soon after, was
chosen to all the honors and titles of the dead Prophet Joseph.
Thenceforward Brigham was Prophet, Priest, Seer and Revelator,
first President and Trustee-in-trust of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. The Mormons were hurried forward to the valley
as fast as possible; there a pure theocracy, of the most absolute character, was established, and Brigham ruled as Lord temporal and spiritual, till late in 1850, when Congress organized the Territory of Utah.
Meanwhile the Mormons had filled the country with written,
printed, and sworn denials of the existence of polygamy, and Col.
Thomas L. Kane had indorsed their denials; so President Fillmore
appointed Brigham Young Governor of the new Territory, an office
he held till 1857. The President appointed one Mormon U. S.
District-Judge, the other two being Gentiles; a Mormon DistrictAttorney, and a Gentile Secretary, dividing the offices very fairly.
Of course there was trouble.  Brigham kept the people in such an
excited state that the two Gentile judges soon left-not to put too fine
a point upon it, ran away, to the great delight of the Saints. And
soon after, at the annual festival, the following toast was rapturously
applauded: "Our runaway judges; may they go on to where they
belong-to hell!" And to further demonstrate his loyalty Brigham
preached a sermon on the "' earthly reign of the Saints," in which he
said: " In that day the chief men of the earth will come to us begging
for a place; I expect the President of the United States to black my
boots!, Polite reference to the gentleman who had made him Governor. But this sort of thing greatly delighted the foreign-born
serfs-natural snobs-who constituted a majority of the Church laity.
Unfortunately for them, Secretary Harris concluded to go with the,
judges; and in spite of threats and injunctions, carried with him the
$24,000 Congress had appropriated to pay the legislature of the new
Territory, and the Mormons never got a cent of it. This hurt Brigham-right where he lived. He did not get reconciled to it, till long
after he had become a millionaire.               I
In 1854, President Pierce decided to appoint another governor, but
could find no suitable person to take the place. More judges were
appointed, and things ran along pretty smoothly till 1856, when the
climax of Mormon fanaticism was reached; murder by wholesale was
inaugurated, the judges were driven out, and the Mormon war began.
As a result of that war, Brigham ceased to be Governor; and a somewhat better state of things was established. We l4ave now done with




0


598                   WESTERN WILDS.
Brigham as a Federal official, backed by the authority of the United
States; it is time to consider him as a marrying man, a husband and
a father, in which capacity he is most popularly known. Brigham
had two reasons for being a marrying man: ambition and a vigorous,
sensual physique.  He had a peculiar magnetic power over some
people. The way it affected some women may be guessed from the
fact that one of the handsomest ladies in Nauvoo got divorced from a
good man, in.order to be Brigham's concubine, and a refined, rather
intelligent Boston lady literally followed him off, taking along her two
children to be reared in Mormonism. Brigham was rather kind to
this one: called her "'Augusta," and honored her with his supreme
affections for three whole years.
Brigham's physique was the very best that cool, hardy Vermont
could furnish. Hisyoungest child, daughter of Margaret Van Cott
Young, was born in 1870; his oldest, now the wife of Edmund Ellsworth, must have been born 'as early as 1825, for Brigham was a
widower with two daughters when he joined the Mormons; and his
grandchildren in this line are now well advanced men and women.
So his active parental life covered a period of forty-five years, and
(though I have no late returns) his children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren number at least one hundred and fifty. Not bad
for an alkali country! Add widows and sons-in-law, and grandsonsin-law, and the number interested in the estate amounts to nearly two
hundred.
The old man outlasted three generations of wives, and had made
a pretty good start on the fourth; for he married Amelia Folsom in
1865, and the last time I saw her she was beginning to look like an
old woman. Brigham lost his first wife quite young. Her daughters
are both in polygamy-that is, their husbands have other " women "
than them, and have large families. Their daughters also have many
children, and, counting his first and second wives, it is said by some,
who ought to know, that Brigham's legitimate offspring are, after all,
nearly as numerous as his illegitimate. About the time he was " converted," he married Mary Ann Angell. She is his present legal wife,
and has lived for many years in the " white cottage on the bench "that is, on the hill just back of Brigham's. She was of the same age
as Brigham, and about 1843, he began on his second lot of wives.
Joe Smith got his " Revelation on Celestial Marriage," July 12, 1843,
and as soon thereafter as Brigham could get authority, he married the
Decker sisters. One of them, Lucy, had been for some time married
to Dr. Seely, a reputable physician of Nauvoo, but the High Council




THE DEAD PROPHET:


599


unceremoniously set that marriage aside; Brigham took her, and the
doctor went to " grass."
His fourth wife was Harriet Cook, whom he took soon after the
exodus from Nauvoo; but she was a "rebellious spirit," and at
Winter Quarters (now Florence, Nebraska), "the devil entered into
and did possess her." (For "possession," and the plan of relief
adopted, see Captain Dan Jones' account in the 11th volume of the
Millennial Star; also, Pratt's IKey to Theology, and other Mormon
works.) As a result she railed on Brigham, and denounced polygamy,
and ended by trying to strangle her baby, Oscar Young. Brigham
managed to prevent that, and in due time "the devil left her;" but
he swore she should never become a mother the second time. And
she did not. He married a few more wives while establishing the
settlement in Utah; but all of this lot retired from business as early
as 1855 or 1860.
His great favorite then, and the one who retained his affections the
longest, was Emmeline Free, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
And she was truly a lovely woman. Her children are, I think, the
handsomest of Brigham's offspring, and she bore him ten. He was
proud of her beauty and accomplishments, and for at least twelve years
she was beyond question the queen of his heart. But youth and
beauty can't last always, and about 1865, Brigham began to hanker
for a new deal. Then Emmeline became desperate. She applied to
Mary Ann Angell, the first wife, for help to prevent another marriage,
but the latter was long past taking any interest in such things. After
two or three trials with rather common wives, who did not please him
more than a few months, Brigham's affections twined around Amelia
Folsom; and there they have clung ever since, save for a few side disturbances, most noted of which was the alimonious Ann Eliza. Emmeline was literally heart-broken, and, to add to her troubles, she had
to bear the reproaches and taunts of those she had once displaced.
She took to opium for consolation, and died in the summer of 1875, a
perfect wreck —a confirmed " morphine drunkard! "
I think it was about a week after the burial of Emmeline (she was
buried with surprising indifference to details and appearances) that
we had a large party of excursionists from the East. They all called
on Brigham, and paid their most profound respects, and were positively indignant at some of us resident Gentiles for the war we made on
the hierarchy. One lady took me to task very severely, and afterward
sent me a clipping from an Eastern paper, with her able defense of
Brigham therein. I like to hear Eastern people apologize for polyg



600


WESTERN WILDS.


amy-especially ladies. They go about it so logically, and it sounds
so natural.
Well, Amelia became the recognized Queen of the Harem in 1866,
and has ruled the old fellow ever since. It is hinted that she knows
too much, and that he would have liked to a shake" her, but did not
dare. All the style of all the other wives put together would not
equal hers. She has had an elegant palace built for her sole self,


TEX MORMON TABERNACLB.
across the street from the main hennery, and generally lives more like
the wife of a millionaire and great leader, than did any of her
predecessors. Brigham has had four or five flirtations since 1866, and
married a time or two, but none of them amounted to any thing. It
would appear that Ann Eliza rather thought she could supersede
Amelia, and did hold her own well for, a few months, but the other
soon knocked her clear out of the ring. Hence these tears. Margaret
Van Cott, one of the latest, is a good woman, and a mother, too; and
it is said this last circumstance irritates Amelia more than any thing
else. She has not been at all reticent in her insinuations about " that




THE DEAD PROPHET.


601


woman's baby," but nobody believes such charges; the character of
Margaret is too well established. Saint and Gentile are willing to
swear that her little girl is honestly entitled to the two hundredth
part of that big estate.
But there was one woman, Selina Ursenbach, who, could Brigham
have won her, would have made it lively for Amelia. She was the
sister of Octave Ursenbach, famous in Utah as the architect who designed the big organ in the Mormon Tabernacle. Brigham was in
love for the thirtieth time, and his love was warm-warmer than his
youthful passion in a geometrical progression. Selina was a young,
beautiful Swiss lady. She played on all musical instruments, and
spoke the purest French. Brigham made himself a perfect dandy for
her sake. She smiled on a young fellow, and Brigham sent him away
on a mission. Then Selina got disgusted, apostatized from the Church,
and went back to Switzerland. But if Brigham could have lived out
his days, as nature intended, he might in turn have set aside Amelia,
and gone on with the fifth generation of " wives" in the old style, as
when in his prime his affection was a flowering annual, or semi-annual,
blooming anew every spring and fall, and clinging to new supports
each time.
To conclude, those best informed sum up. thus: Brigham has from
first to last been, actually married twenty-nine times; the largest number of wives he ever had at one time was twenty-three, of whom fifteen survive him. But he has been "sealed," on the "spiritual wife"'
system, to quite a number of pious old ladies, with whom he has
nothing to do in this world, but who are to be his in eternity; and of
his actual wives four belong to Joe Smith, having been the latter's at
Nauvoo, and being destined for him in eternity.  And do the women
believe this sort of thing? asks an amazed reader.  Well, some of
them do, and the rest fall in with the prevailing tendency of the
society they move in, just as the majority of women do every-where.
Take women as a mass, and that which is established is right.  And
right here I would protest against that arrant stupidity, so common in
the East, that men alone are responsible for polygamy; that the
'"poor women are the victims," and that women would, under certain circumstances, put a stop to it.  It is akin to that spurious and
sickly sensibility of the French school (see Victor Hugo and Wilkie
Collins), which makes a prostitute the heroine of the drama; and
has maudlin sentiment for "Mercy Merrick" and "Fantine," but sarcasm for the honest woman.  It certainly requires no great amount
of robust common sense to see that sexual sin requires two sinners;.




602


WESTERN WILDS.


and that in such a matter the woman knows right from wrong as
well as the man. In Utah, if any odds, the women should bear the
larger share of the blame; for, if there is any difference, they are
the more persistent in it. There is not one young woman in fifty who
marry polygamists, who does not confidently believe she will always
be the favorite.  Others' experience is of no value in things of this
nature.
Two important questions are now to be settled: Who will succeed?
and who xvill take the property? Brigham appears to have left a
will, but there is no well established law of descent in Utah.  The
custom has been, when a polygamist died, for the church authorities
to take charge and divide the property according to their notions
of equity. The widows, if not too old, married some other polygamist, the boys scratched for themselves, and the minor children were
supported on some principle pot known to Gentiles. From the first
the Saints (male) bought and sold real estate without the signature
of any wife, first or tenth; but when Gentile courts and lawyers began to take a hand, some of them (not all) maintained that the common law right of dower inhered in all American territory, despite
the silence of the statutes.  Accordingly a few legal wives came in
for their rights, and cut out the polygamous women entirely. To head
off this, the Mormon Legislature of 1872 passed an act abolishing
dower in direct terms.  But in one of the first statutes passed (in
1851, I believe) occurs this clause: "Illegitimate children and their
mothers shall inherit as if legitimate."  This is held by some lawyers (not all) to cover the case of polygamous women and children.
It is almost the only law in Utah which specifically recognizes any
property rights in married women.  It need not be said that from
the dawn of Saxon civilization the common law every-where takes it
for granted that there can be but one legal wife at a time, one widow
and one family, one domicile and one line of direct descent. Hence
it has proved practically impossible to apply the common law in
Utah. The attention of woman suffragists is respectfully called to
the fact that the only Territory in the world where all the women
vote is also the only civilized one which has no marriage act and no
dower law!
It would seem, then, that if the legitimate children choose to do
so, they can take the whole estate. They are as follows: Mrs. Ellsworth and Mrs. Decker, daughters of the first wife, have each a
numerous -offspring; and Mary Ann Angell had five children,
Brigham, Joseph, John, Alice and Luna, making seven legitimate




THE DEAD PROPHET.


603


children, all with considerable families. I should say Brigham's
legitimate offspring must number at least sixty, as there are several
great grandchildren in that line. His property, in no way connected
with the Church, may aggregate $800,000; though he swore it in, in
1875, at $600,000, and ten years ago at $250,000. Bht there is nearly
a million more of which the legal title is vested in him, while the
real ownership is supposed to be in the Church; such as the
"Church fields," "Church herds," etc., in various parts of the Territory. Again, by the rules of the "Order of Enoch," hundreds of
Mormons all over the Territory have deeded their farms to him as
Trustee-in-trust, they having "consecrated" it, and now holding it as
"stewards of the Lord."  Again, during the many years he was in
active business, Brigham frequently traded between himself and the
Church, the Trustee-in-trust exchanging property with the man; and
it is not to be supposed that he allowed the fiduciary capacity to get
the better of the individual.  All this will give rise to some interesting questions.  When the Saints left Nauvoo, the widow of Joe
Smith flatly refused to deed to the Church any property held by the
Prophet; and in Brigham's case, I fancy it will take a Philadelphia
lawyer to get an entering wedge between the legal and merely equitable title. A good deal depends on the honesty of young Brigham
and John.
As to the succession, no rule has ever been established, either by
revelation or custom. Joe Smith once ordained his son Joe to be "a
king and priest in his stead," and the "Josephites" now acknowledge him.   Before the birth of David Hyrum Smith, his father
again prophesied that "this son who is to be, after a season, etc.,
will lead the people."  David Hyrum  is a poet and an artist, as
pleasant a gentleman as I ever met, but he could no more "lead"
the Church, as it now exists in Utah, than a delicate, timid scholar
could have commanded the Army of the Potomac. Young Joe,
as he is familiarly called, is a good citizen, a fair sort of man, and
not too modest; and I apprehend that if there is a break up, most
of the foreign born Saints will eventually take him for a leader.
The third son of old Joe, William Alexander Smith, is a pretty
good preacher, but claims no authority to lead any body. For many
years Brigham relied on young Brigham to succeed him, and tried
hard to lick "the fat boy" into shape, but'it was a hopeless case.
The younger man is a great, fat, lubberly "poke," about as handsome
as a bag of meal tied up ugly. Brigham gave him up years ago, and
turned his attention toward Joseph A. But the latter looked upon




604


WESTERN WILDS.


the "valley tan" when it was red, and in 1875 died of "whisky
cramp."
John W. Young was then an apostate, having discarded his polygamous wives, and married a Philadelphia lady. By Brigham's efforts
he was brought back, rebaptized, and made First Councilor, with
the full understanding that he was to be the successor. He believes
in Mormonism no more than you or I, but since his reclamation has
married some more wives to give him standing in the Church. His
treatment of the other polygamous wives was simply infamous; but,
all things considered, I think it would be best for the Territory that
he should succeed. He would let the people down slowly from their
fanatical heights, and relax the ecclesiastical bonds so gently that
there would be no unnecessary suffering. He could not rule the people as Brigham did, if he would. His first trouble will be in the
settlement of that estate. Ifthat property is divided without a row,
it will be a wonderful triumph of Mormon grace. But will he succeed to the Presidency? I'm afraid not. The people doubt his Mormonism. They want a man with more fanaticism.
Among the Twelve Apostles there is but one man even remotely
capable of succeeding Brigham, viz.: George Q. Cannon, present Delegate in Congrey. He is at once fanatical and unscrupulous, cautious
and energetic. If the precedent made by Brigham is to be followed,
then Orson Hyde, former President of the Twelve Apostles, will
succeed.  But he is utterly incapable, a constitutional blunderer,
given to all sorts of red-hot prophecies, which are falsified before they
are a year old. The most dangerous man in the lot is LieutenantGeneral Daniel H. Wells, Brigham's Second Councilor, a bloodthirsty bigot, who would like nothing better than to drive every
obnoxious Gentile out of Utah. Fortunately there is small chance of
his succeeding, for he would involve the Territory in war before
twelve months. John Taylor is the most common sensible Apostle,
but he has grown rich and conservative. He is now President of the
Twelve Apostles, who, according to the latest "revelation," are to govern the Church until "' God raises up a successor."  Orson Pratt is
the most learned of the twelve, but he is a dreaming astronomer
whose head is among the stars. There is, then, no man fit to succeed. Unless the Mormons can take kindly to John Young and
forgive all his backslidings, they will have to be governed by the
Twelve Apostles as they were for some years after Joe Smith's death,
and this for an indefinite period, until some one rises with ability to
take control.  In the end I am inclined to think those who hold




THE DEAD PROPHET.


605


out faithful will find themselves adhering to one of the sons of Joe
Smith, for they alone have prophecy in their favor. Nobody need
hope that Mormondom will suddenly dissolve. I lack space to
show why the mass of the people must hold together; but for years
to come they dare not dissolve. Two or three thousand men and
four times as many women are in polygamy; they must stick to an
institution which confers a sort of respectability on their condition.
Twenty thousand young people are of polygamous birth. As long as
possible they will sustain laws and social customs which make them
legitimate. Two hundred Mormons have committed murder. Once
break the solid alignment that now exists, divide them into sects
fighting each other, and the Gentile courts would have these men on
the scaffold in two years. Of those not in polygamy, two-thirds
have near relations in it. They can not cut loose and stigmatize
these relations. In property matters they are inextricably entangled.
By the "Order of Enoch," the "consecration of property," and the
" perfect oneness in Christ," their homesteads have been deeded back
and forward, tied over and under and crisscrossed, so there is no
getting out till all are willing to go and settle things on a basis of
pure equity.  The apostates must have a clear majority of three to
one before they can do any thing, for the elders hold the strings.
Through every part of the social organism runs a complex set of
stringers, which will bind it together till all the old Mormons die.
The process of disintegration may be rapid enough to end it in ten
years, but I doubt it. And at least half of them still believe the
faith; the women being twice as fanatical as the men. It may interest some people to know that the mens conscia recti, of which some
religionists boast, is but a trifle to the women's conscia recti; and
both are always the strongest in the lower religious types.  Or, in
plain English, the bigger fool a man is the more positive is he that
he knows the design of God; and, other things being equal, the
woman is more positive than the man.
Nothing used to vex us more when I lived in Utah, than the
amiable folly of certain Eastern people who imagined that this, or
that, or the other trifling agency would put an end to theocratic
tyranny. But above all others were we annoyed and hindered by
the nonsense of those who fancied the Mormon women would effect
a revolution by their votes! Who does not know that if the women
were opposed to polygamy, it could not exist anyhow?
The growing society follows pretty closely the analogy of the
human body. Introduce a foreign substance, and n effort is made




606


WESTERN WILDS.


to expel it; if unsuccessful, the organism at once begins to accommodate itself thereto, and does it or dies.  Similarly, whatever custom or social anomaly you introduce into a society, that society
immediately begins to adapt itself thereto, and in a surprisingly
short space of time all the petty observances and habits of thought
are adjusted on a basis to fit the custom.  We think the one wife
system alone to be natural; but four-fifths of the human race are
familiar with the many wives system. In Utah a whole generation
has grown up under it; it would outlast this generation simply by
acquired momentum, if there were not some powerful disturbing
cause. Add to this that scores of the leading Mormons have committed crime at some portion of their lives, and then try to imagine
them as divided into two or three warring factions, and the Gentiles
cutting in between, using one faction to play off against the other!
They will never do it. They will continue to present a solid front, so
they can manage the juries and thwart the courts; and all simply
because they must.
Meanwhile old Mormons will die, and young ones grow up infidels.
Mormon girls will run away to mining towns, sometimes to marry
Gentiles, but as often to practice polygamy without the troublesome
intervention of the priest. John Young, if he succeeds, will skirmish around for some more wives, and maintain the priestly dignity
for some time. And slowly, steadily, as for the past ten years, the
system will wear out, with immense misery and corruption.  The
social fabric will, for awhile, fall into chaos, and Utah will pass
through a season of moral storm before the better day comes.




CHAPTER XXXVII.


WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE?
FIVE million Americans are asking this question. They will take
Greeley's advice and go West; but are as yet undecided as to locality.
Let us therefore briefly note the good and bad features of various
sections.  Imprimis, then, there is no paradise in the West; no
region where one will not find serious drawbacks in climate, soil or
society.
If you like a middle northern clime, there is no better place than
southern Minnesota and the adjacent parts of Dakota.  These have
one great advantage over northern Iowa: the vacant land is still in
the market at government prices; in Iowa it has been granted too
extensively, and railroads and speculators own too much of it in
large bodies. In the long run they lose money by holding it in this
way; they would do well to sell and invest elsewhere; but they have
not found that out yet.  By and by the residents will learn how to
make non-resident land pay all the taxes, as it now pays quite half,
and then the speculators will sell cheap; but at present it would be
advisable to locate where there is not so much non-resident land.
The arguments now so common against these grants apply only to the
border States; all the land given to the railroads west of longitude 100,
was not worth one day's debate in Congress. The income from it will
never pay interest at a dollar an acre. The climate of Minnesota
may be divided thus; summer, four months; winter, five months;
spring and autumn, six weeks each. In fact it is less than six weeks
from the end of the snowy season to the coming of early fruits; but
they call it spring the first of April, though the snow be six inches
deep.
The quickness of vegetation is amazing. In August, along the
Blue-Earth River, one can scarcely believe he is not in a tropical
country; the heavy forests of lynn and walnut, the groves of sugar
maple supporting a dense leafy mass, the dark green vistas and rich
natural parks, with the rank grass on the prairies seem out of place
so far north. By November this gives way to snow, which remains
till April first or tenth. It then seems to disappear all at once. The
(607)




608


WESTERN WILDS.


black sandy soil dries out thoroughly in a week; but the air is still
* cool enough to justify an overcoat, and for a fortnight there are only
brown plains and gray woods, with no hint of dawning life. A few
days of warmth, and there is a swelling and fluttering perceptible on
" the bosom  of nature; then grass, bush, branch and vine spring
quickly into living green, and in one.month tropic luxuriance succeeds wintry death.  But September clothes this region in its most
attractive dress.  The frost turns one thicket purple, another bright
red or golden yellow, while the large timber is still green; through
the glades blows the cool and stimulating air, and over all is the soft
blue sky of the Garden State.
The advantages of this country are: abiundant timber and running
water, regular and exceedingly healthful climate, fertile soil, freedom
from droughts and freshets, and land of excellent quality still to be
had at reasonable rates. Its disadvantages: a long cold winter and
occasional liability to grasshoppers-the latter, however, very rare.
The vegetable productions are remarkable, though report sometimes
exaggerates. Tradition tells of one Minnesota Granger who happened
to be examining a cucumber just as the season of rapid growth set
in. As he backed out to give it room, the growihg vine followed
him so rapidly that he took to his heels, but was soon overtaken.
It grew all around him, tangled up his legs, and threw him down.
Reaching in great haste for his knife to cut himself loose, he found
that a cucumber had gone to seed in his breeches pocket.
The adjoining part of Dakota has similar climate and soil, but two
disadvantages: there is less timber and more wind.  But land is
much cheaper.  Hundreds of sections in every county can still be
had at Government rates; and in the older settlements improved
farms can even now be bought very cheap.   Timber grows rapidly,
and all the old settlers assure me they soon grow accustomed to the
wind. I have noticed in all my western wanderings that the regions
of abundant wind are those most free from malaria. The only exception, if it is one, is in the Indian Territory, where there is wind
enough, and yet much complaint on the 'score of fever and ague.
Despite my experience with the high winds of Dakota, I am inclined
to set down as fabulous the statement sometimes made by the envious,
that an old Dakotian can not talk if the wvind suddenly stops blowing. So used to it, you know.
Iowa I have already described at some length. I can not get rid
of the impression that the northern part of it is colder than the
neighboring part of Minnesota, There is less timber, and the wind




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE?


609


has a fairer fling at a man. Artificial groves grow rapidly, and the
soil is of great fertility. And if you find there is too much non-resident land in your vicinity, you can help your good neighbors stick
the taxes on it till the owner is willing to sell for whatever he can
get. I have a friend who has paid $620 taxes in ten years, on a quarter section of Iowa land, and is now ready to sell to some man who
owns a gold mine or a spouting oil-well. We have all heard of the
man who ate so much it made him poor to carry it. Similarly, some
people own so much western land that it will break them up to keep
it. The settlers do not intend that non-residents shall get the benefit of their hard pioneering-and who shall blame them?
Let us go a little further south.  Northern Nebraska I know but
little about, but in the southern part of that State is a region which
seems to me peculiarly inviting to men from the Middle Northern
States. "South Platte," as this division is called, contains at least
25,000 square miles of fertile land, of which one-half or more is for
sale quite cheap.  The climate is perceptibly milder than that of
"North Platte," and all the fruits and grains of the temperate zone
are produced on a generous soil.  Along the line of the Burlington
and Missouri River Railroad land is held at high rates, but in the rest
of the country i can be bought at from five to eight dollars per acre.
There is no government land in this section worth naming.  The
climate is about like that of central Ohio, with dryer winters and
more wind. This last you may retain as a general statement as to all
the border States.  Society is most excellent.  The population is intelligent and progressive. and nowhere does a man find himself out
of reach of the church and school-house.  Going westward on any
line one will find the winters growing dryer, also more "airish." So
the doubting emigrant may ask himself "whether 'tis nobler in a man
to suffer" cold healthful winds, to have dry roads and freedom from
mud; or take refuge in the wooded regions of Indiana or Missouri,
avoid the winds and suffer the other evils.
We now turn to a region more affected by men from the middle latitudes. In many. weeks travel between the Des Moines and the Arkansas, one-fifth or more of those I met were from Ohio, and nearly
all of them had sought this region since the war.  Kansas, like
Nebraska, is divided into northern and southern-this by the Kaw,
that by the Platte.  North-eastern Kansas is already an old country;
Doniphan County was pretty well settled twenty years ago. A hundred miles west of the Missouri land can still be had at reasonable
rates, but I have never visited that section.  When we come to
39




610


WESTERN WILDS.


southern Kansas an inviting field indeed is open to us.  Good land is
cheaper to-day than it was five years ago.  This I happen to know
from painful personal experience. But it don't follow that it will be
cheaper still five years from now. Surely "the bottom" is reached by
this time. In the second tier of counties, including Anderson, Allen,
Neosho and Labette, the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company have large tracts of good lana for sale; and private
owners a still larger amount.
This region boasts of many advantages: a mild climate, soil of rare
fertility, timber sufficient for all ordinary purposes, rock in abundance,
and easy communication with the rest of the world.  Society is unsurpassed by that of any section, east or west. Churches and schoolhouses are within convenient reach of every section of land, and a
man can not settle in so wild a spot that the mail will not bring him
late papers at least twice a week.  For seven years this region was
blessed with good crops; then came the "bad year" of 1874, when
drought, chintz-bugs and grasshoppers in succession desolated the
land. In Allen County large streams dried to beds of dust, the fish
literally parching on the rocks; and pools and springs disappeared
which the oldest inhabitant had considered perennial.  In 1875nature resumed her wonted courses; but the people hadbeen too poor to
sow wheat, and the country remained in a condition of general poverty. But such a crop otherwise I had never seen. There were miles
on miles of corn-fields, yielding from forty to eighty bushels per acre,
and for sale at twenty cents per bushel; tens of thousands of tons of
hay, worth two dollars per ton in the stack; potatoes by millions, and
more feed than the stock could eat. And there was the trouble. The
people had not a sufficiently diversified industry.  They had relied almost entirely on the sale of grain, and this year there was no sale, and
they remained poor despite their immense crops.  I came down from
the mountains on a visit just after the last grasshoppers had left, and
a rural wag gave me this dialect picture of his experience with them:
"You see I bought early in '72-give $2,200 for 240 acres. Could
a bought the same for half that two years after; can buy good land
right alongside o' mine now for a V an acre. Been a deal o' cramp
in real estate in this country.  Well, nobody ever makes a crop the
first year in a prairie country-think themselves in luck to get fences
built and sod broke. I bought a hundred sheep-two blooded rams
and the rest common ewes-and put all the rest of my money in improvements. Raised a little corn and oats in 1873, and put thirty acres
of the new land, sod broke in 1872, into wheat, and went to work with a




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE


611


hurrah in 1874 to make a God-awful crop. Every thing come a booming, and I thought I had the world in a sling. Corn, oats, potatoes
and wheat just got up and laughed, they grew so fine.  Thought I
never saw such a country for things to grow. Worked all the week,
and used to set on the fence Sunday and calculate how rich I'd be.
Went out one fine sunny morning about the first of June, and thought,
by jiminy, the whole ground was a moving. Ten million hoppers to
the square yard-all chawin' away as if the country belonged to 'em.
Saturday morning they come into my farm from a ridge just south o'
me-Sunday noon there wasn't a green thing where the corn, cane and
potatoes had been. Job's luck wasn't a circumstance. My corn lot
looked as if forty bands o' wild Arabs had fell onto it. Not a
smidgeon left-just bodaciously chawed up and spit out.
"Well, of course I had the dumps. But I rallied. 'All right,'
says I; 'got wheat and tobacco left anyhow.' Professor P — said
they wouldn't eat tobacco; but he's a fraud, sir-a barefaced fraud.
The hoppers just went up on a ridge north of me and shed their second
coats, and then come back on the tobacco.  They eat every leaf clean
to the ground, then dug up the roots and set on the fence and cussed
every man that come along, for a chaw. About that time they got
wings, and sudden as could be rose in the air and went off north a
whirlin' like a shower o' white and yellow paper bits. 'All right,'
says I; 'they've left my wheat anyhow.' Singular enough they didn't
touch it; it was on t'other side the place, and out o' their track.
Well, I rallied again, and counted on six hundred bushels o' wheatand wheat's thb money crop in this country. About June the middle
I noticed all at once that my wheat looked kind o' sick. Come to examine, sir, it was completely lined with a little, miserable, black and
yellow, nasty, smelling bug. I took some to a man 'at had been here
ten years.  'Neighbor,' says he, 'you're a goner; thems chintz-bugs,
and every head o' that wheat that an't cut,'ll be et up in forty-eight
hours.' Well, it was Sunday morning, and the wheat nothing like
ripe; but it was a chance, and I got onto my reaper and banged down
every hoot of it before Monday night. It cured in the sun and the
bugs left it, and out o' the lot I got just a hundred and forty bushels
o' shrunk-up stuff. It was a hundred and forty bushels more than
any o' my neighbors got. You bet there was improved farms for sale
in that neighborhood. My sheep had done well, and that was all I
was ahead. Taking it by and large, the only sure crop is sheep."
He touched the right point in the last sentence; this is the country
for stock-growing. Corn anA hay can be produced so cheaply that




612


WESTERN WILDS.


the cost of bringing a full-grown ox into market is less than half what
it would be in Ohio. The best of unimproved land, near the railroad,
sometimes sells as high as twelve dollars per acre; from that it ranges
down to four. In 1875 the surplus crop of the State was worth
twelve million dollars. The report for that year showed that the corn
raised in the State, if shelled and put in box-cars, would have
loaded a train sixteen hundred miles long!
The Indian Territory is much talked of, but I would not advise any
one to go there with a view to permanent settlement. Government
can not open the land to immigration without a shameful breach of
good faith, and for one, as an humble citizen, I protest against it.
There is such an abundance of good land elsewhere that we can afford
to leave this to the civilized Indians for the next fifty years. Then
their progress will have been such that they will themselves throw
it open and invite white settlers.  Texas, just south of it, offers a far
better field.  Dallas is the center of a region two hundred miles
square, which offers great inducements to Northern men.  The winters are sharp enough to insure health and energy; and the summers
are not, as far as I could observe, any hotter than in Minnesota.
Land through all this section can be had at from four to eight dollars
per acre.  There are no Congressional lands in Texas; it is all State
land. This comes of the State having been an independent republic
when it came into the Union.  It reserved the ownership of all lands,
within its borders, though there are not wanting lawyers who assert
that the general government might have rightfully taken those lands
from the State after the latter had seceded.
Look out for those beautifully colored maps which divide Texas
into various agricultural sections, and locate the "wheat lands" away
up on the heads of the Brazos, Colorado and Red River. One can
put in his eye all the wheat they will raise up there without an expansive and expensive system of irrigation, and it will puzzle them to
find water to irrigate with. If half that region is fit for grazing land
it is the best we can expect.  Southern Texas is not very suitable for
Northern men. Along the gulf are immense areas of fine sugar and
cotton lands, but the climate is not favorable. Not that the heat is so
great; but the summers are long, the autumns dry, and the winters first
warm, moist and debilitating, and then very chilly. Central and northern Texas are free from these disadvantages. The immigrant from the
North must learn a new system of agriculture, but that he can easily do.
Society? Well, I found it very agreeable. If there is any special
hostility to Northern men, or Republicans, I never noticed it. The




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE


613


latter maintain their organization, sometimes elect their candidate, and
always give him a hearty support, though the State has been Democratic since 1872. Texas may fairly claim to be one of the best governed States in the Union.  Except on the south-western border the
ratio of crimes is very small.  In 1873 the law against carrying concealed weapons was strictly enforced in the railroad towns ---a good
deal more than can be said of any towfi on the Union or Kansas Pacific Railroads.  It is in the "cow counties," in the extreme west and
south-west, that some lawlessness still prevails.  The law as to concealed weapons excepts those counties, it being considered a necessity
that the vacqueros should go prepared for "enterprising Mexicans"
and other cattle thieves. If you like a wild country, that's the place
for you, and if that is not wild enough try the Comanche border.
There the mountainous spurs put out towards the lower country and
cut it up into numerous little valleys. Down these spurs come the
savages, often lying in ambush for days together in the scrubby timber, watching the ranches below.  And all this time the settlers go
about their usual work in assured safety, for there is not the slightest
danger. till after the " strike."  One might walk within a rod of the
hidden enemy and never be molested.    The settlers see signs of
Indians about, but feel no uneasiness; but once the raid is made, and
the robbers on the run for cover, they kill all they encounter, and even
slaughter stock they can not take away.  They can get five or ten
miles more running out of a horse than can a white man; and five
minutes after they leave him he is so near dead that he can not be
forced to walk. When hard pressed they draw a knife, hastily make
a few incisions in the animal's hide and rub in salt and powder. As
the cow-boys express it, "it puts new life in a hoss."
But when long immunity has made the settlers careless, there sometimes occur tragedies which thrill the country with horror, and are
told for years by the pioneers' hearth-stone, or around the camp-fire,
where rude borderers teach their younger companions eternal hatred
of all the Indian race. In the year 1850, a Mississippian, named
Lockhardt, settled a little farther up the Colorado than was then
usual with families, but still in a region thought to be safe from
Comanche raids; and, in a few years, was surrounded with most of
the comforts of his more eastern home. Wealth and good taste
united to improve the wild beauty of nature; his house, elegant indeed for the border, was a temple of hospitality; his flocks and herds
ranged over the area of a dukedom; his colored servants scarce knew
they had a master, so light was his patriarchal sway; and far and




614


WESTERN WILDS.


near the name of 'Squire Lockhardt was known as that of a natural
nobleman and Texas gentleman.  The friendly Indians that passed
that way also partook of his hospitality, and he made the too common
mistake of supposing that this would shield him against the incursions of their wilder congeners. But, of all his possessions, none was
so widely celebrated as his daughter Minnie. The rude vacqueros
were charmed into unusual courtesy at sight of her; and, from far
and near, young Texans of more pretensions sought her society. On
the border, a young woman of beauty and accomplishments often acquires a wide-spread fame that would seem impossible to Eastern people; her graces are recounted in such fervid rhetoric that the cold
critic of an older community would think of her as a fabulous being.
Even so the charms of Minnie Lockhardt were sung in a hundred
camps, from the Trinity to the Colorado.
Many other settlers, generally single men, and skillful frontiersmen,
had located between Lockhardt and the staked plain, and he had long
ceased to think of an Indian raid as even remotely possible, when,
suddenly as lightning from a clear sky, the Indian war of 1854-'5
broke out; and, from the settlements on the upper Rio Grande, clear
around to the Canadian, the border was in a blaze. The Utes and
Apaches on the west pressed the Mexicans and whites, while the Comanches, from  their fastnesses, carried destruction far down into
Texas.  The storm broke while Lockhardt was absent from home.
Every settler near him was killed; his servants fled for their lives,
and his daughter, then but twenty years of age, was carried into captivity. The frenzied father sent an appeal to his fellow-citizens, and
it seemed that the whole Texan border was moved by one common
impulse. Every young Texan who could supply himself with horse
and gun was eager to assist in the rescue of Minnie Lockhardt; and,
as soon as a force of two hundred had assembled, the father led them
towards the high country, leaving word for the others to follow.
Striking the trail of the Comanches, the Texans followed as fast as
the strength of their horses would allow, their furious zeal continually
aroused anew by the sights along the way, where worn out captives
had been ruthlessly murdered. Suddenly, at daylight, the pursuers
came upon the murderers in one of those numerous cafions of upper
Texas, where the savages had thought themselves safe.
Then ensued one of the most desperately contested battles of the
Texan border. The Indian camp was set far back in a grove of
scrubby timber, on all sides of which rose sandy hillocks and detached rocks, furnishing admirable lines of defense, as well as retreat.




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE6


615


Again and again did the Texans, led by Lockhardt, penetrate almost
to the camp, only to be driven back; and, on each advance, they dis
tinctly heard the voice of Minnie calling on them for help, and
dreaded lest their attack should be the signal for her death. But it
appears the savages were bent on preserving their captive if possible.
A double line of warriors surrounded the tent in which -she was
bound; and at last the wretched father, bleeding from a dozen
wounds, was forced away by his men, who saw that the attack was
hopeless. Having received reinforcements, they renewed the fight
the second day after, but the Indians had also collected their force
and taken a still stronger position; and to the father, lying helpless
with his wounds, the men at last reported that tile attack was hopeless, unless with a force large enough to surround the Comanche
stronghold and reduce it by a regular siege.
Successive bands of Texans arrived, and in a few days the father
again urged them to the attack; but the Indians had managed to retreat, carrying Miss Lockhardt with them. With the devilishness inherent in the Comanche nature, they were all the more determined to
keep her when they saw the general anxiety of the whites for her
recovery. But she proved a troublesome prize. The fact of her captivity nerved every Texan to desperate measures, and in a short time
the Indians were attacked at all points, and forced back towards the
Pecos. Then, as afterwards appeared, the band having possession of
Miss Lockhardt, sent her northward, and disposed of her to the
Arapahoes. Convinced that she was the daughter of a great chief, by
the exertions made to recapture her, this tribe opened negotiations
with the commnandants at Fort Union and Lancaster. But before
any thing could be accomplished, the Utes and Apaches were raiding
the entire New Mexican border, and the captive girl in some way was
transferred to the former tribe.  Despite the awful hardships of a
winter among the savages she survived, and in some way managed to
make known her existence to the American commandant at Fort
Massachusetts, New Mexico. About this time the Territorial Governor called out five hundred New Mexican volunteers, who were put
under command of Colonel Ceran St. Vrain; and, joined by the
First Regiment of United States Dragoons, under Colonel T. T.
Fauntleroy, the whole force marched into the Indian country early in
1855. They defeated the Indians in one general battle and several
minor skirmishes, but no trace of Miss Lockhardt could be found.
The noted Kit Carson was then intrusted with the task of settling withl
the Utes and recovering all captives; but other means were at work.




616


WESTERN WILDS.


Worn down by his wounds and mental suffering, Lockhardt returned home in despair; but another party of determined men set out
to find the captive who had, as it appears, been taken by the Arapahoes and Cheyennes from the Utes, with whom they were at war.
Again and again were the whites almost successful, and as. often was


-        -C-9-C rr
~~-~ —"'4    'r,


FORT MASSACHUSETTS, NEW MEXICO, 1855.
the unfortunate girl hurried away to some more hidden fastness, almost
before their eyes. The general Indian war ended, and a nominal
peace was made; negotiation was again attempted, but the third year
of her captivity came, and still nothing was done. At length a company of the Texan Rangers, having penetrated almost to the heart of
the Guadaloupe Range, came suddenly upon a village of Comanches,




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE?


617


and despite the hurried flight of the savages, who had their own women
and children with them, the Rangers saw among them a captive white
woman. They charged desperately upon the savages, who fled in all
directions, but not till one of them had buried his knife in the body of
the girl, who was still breathing when the Rangers came up. It was
Minnie Lockhardt. She was but just able to smile, as if to welcome
the Rangers, then peacefully breathed her last. "And," said the
weather-beaten frontiersman who gave me these facts, as he choked
down his emotions, "it was a God's blessin' she was dead, an' her
father never seen her." " For she had suffered the last terrible indignity savage malice could invent.  As is common when a captive
woman is not taken by one Indian, she had became.the common property of the band; and loathsome disease had worn her to a skeleton.
Heart-broken and disfigured, death was to her an unmixed gain. Her
afflicted father soon followed her to the grave. The Lockhardt place
is now desolate; its dwellings burned, its tenants gone. But the
chivalry and hospitality of the father are still the theme of local story,
while the beauty and sorrowful fate of the daughter are still told
around the camp-fires and hearth-stones of Texas, and warm anew the
hearts of its sons to undying vengeance against the Comanches.
Texas ends the list of the border States proper. Observe that in all
these States as one goes west he rises slowly to a higher, dryer and
more barren country, till at last, about longitude 100~ or 101~ he enters on " the area of corrugation," as geologists call it, where barrenness is the rule; and this area includes all the western border of Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Ocklahoma and Texas, of eastern Washington, Oregon and California, and all of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming,
Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Let us skip this region
of mountain and desert, and pass at once to the fertile section of the
Pacific coast, lying west of the Sierra Nevadas.
California?  Well, I should not be in a hurry to recommend it to
any man of moderate means.  The worst objection is the oppressive
land monopoly. "A little rauche of twenty thousand acres " is a common expression.  A dozen men each own a dukedom-all but the inhabitants. They will own them after awhile, unless this thing is
remedied. The beginning of this system was in the Mexican grants.
The old Spanish custom was to grant a county of land to an impresario,
on condition that he should settle a certain number of families on it.
The Mexicans continued the system with some modifications, and in
due time the inferiors became peons to the lord.  These titles were
all confirmed by treaty when the United States took possession, and




618


WESTERN WILDS.


have been sustained by the Supreme Court.  Again, when the miners
took the country they supposed the land to be worth but little except
for grazing, and many of them took up claims and sold them for a
trifle to speculators, and thus the best land in California is noow held
in immense tracts by an aristocracy.  Of course these men are in favor of " Chinese cheap labor," and equally of course the poorer whites
are unanimously opposed to it. Some have thought that, as our country grew older, all the lands would be held in the same way; but it is
somewhat reassuring to note that there is less land monopoly in Massachusetts than in Ohio, and far less in Ohio than in California.  In
some of the oldest States the land is most equally distributed, thanks
to our wise laws of descent and distribution of estates; and in the
course of fifty or a hundred years the attrition of a free society will
wear out this evil in California.
It is now very difficult for one to get a small piece of land in that
State; and it would be better for intending emigrants to organize in
some way, and buy out a grant, of which there are always a few for sale.
There are a few places-very few I am afraid-where the best land is not
in the hands of monopolists, and it is already noticeable that such communities improve faster than others. But for many years to come California will continue to be a land of the beggar and the prince.
In Oregon this evil is not so great, but still great enough. Land in
the Willamette Valley is not much cheaper than in Ohio and Indiana,
and I can not think that enough is gained to make it worth while to
go so far. I do not see how a man, wife and five children-average
Western family-can get to Oregon comfortably for less than five or
six hundred dollars, which amount would buy eighty acres of firstclass land in Kansas or Nebraska, or a hundred acres in Texas; and,
having got to Oregon, you must pay more for land than in the other
States named, with a moral certainty that the country will develop
more slowly. Oregon began to be settled by white men as early as
1830; before 1848 it contained 10,000 Americans; its population now
is about 100,000. Kansas was thrown open to settlement only twentythree years ago; it now contains a population of at least 600,000. It
strikes me that's the sort of a country to go to, if you want your future
to hurry up. But if you like a romantic border country-one that
is likely to stay border for a long time-go to Oregon. Oregon
climate? Well, some people like it. I don't. True, it is mild-and
moist; but I am just Yankee enough to prefer the cold, dry winter to
the warm, wet, muggy, and muddy. No five months' rain for me, if
you please. I'd rather freeze than smother. In California it's differ



WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE?


'619


ent. There is no more rain there during the so-called "rainy season"
than in Ohio, and half the time not as much. In fact, there never is
too much rain in California, though there is sometimes too little. The
summers in Oregon are delightful enough-more pleasant than in
California; but, as at present advised, I would not recommend either
State to the class of emigrants just now going West.
Let us now turn to the great interior, and see if we can pick out
any oases inviting to settlement between longitude 100 and the Sierra
Nevadas. Nevada is not an agricultural State at all; and, for aught
we can now see, never will be. It contains 98,000 square miles, and less
good land than three 'average counties in Ohio.  It has population
enough for one-third of a member of Congress; 'but our "paternal
government has granted the State one Representative and two Senators. Nobody need think of going there to engage in farming. In
the far distant future, when land is in much greater demand than now,
some way will perhaps be.found to redeem those arid tracts. Trees
will be planted wherever they will grow; the Australian eucalyptus
may flourish even on the desert, and thus in a few centuries a moister
atmosphere be created. But for the present the population must consist of capitalists and laboring miners, and their congeners. And here
I might indulge in wearying words on the romance and hardship of
a miner's life, had I not given him a chapter to himself. Strange it is
that he should be the most imaginative of men, with a life of such
prosaic toil; but it is, doubtless, because his ways are in a path, as Job
says, "which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not
seen: the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed
by it" (Job xxviii).  And no finer, more poetical description of
the silver miner's strange life under-ground was ever written than in
that chapter, taking Louth's version: "He putteth forth his hand
upon the rocks, he swings above the depths. He cutteth out watercourses through the rocks; and his eye searcheth for precious things.
He makes a new way for the floods; he goes in the very stones of
darkness, in the shadow of death."  The perils of the prospector
above ground are equally great, but the life has its charms for all
that.
In Utah are still a few unoccupied plateaus which could be redeemed by canals taken out from some large stream. Bear River Valley contains some sixty thousand acres of fertile land, which might be
redeemed at moderate cost by a canal from Bear River. The climate
is mild, not very hot in summer, and decidedly pleasant in winter.
The Central Pacific runs through the valley, and the location is ex



820


WESTERN WILDS.


cellent for a thriving colony. On the Sevier is a smaller valley of
the same character. East of the Wasatch Range are several beautiful valleys.,That of Ashley's Fork contains land
enough for three thousand
farms, all of most excel-'
lent quality; and it can be
had for the taking. Late
in 1873 a dozen stock
j"  A                       ranchers settled there, and
lave raised splendid crops
every year since.  Be it
noted that in no part of
the temperate zone is fruit
a more certain crop than
4in Utah.  Peaches never
fail.  The Ashley Valley
slopes gently to the southeast; snow rarely lies on
more than one night, and
all the slopes are rich in
bunch-grass.  Game is
abundant in the neighboring hills, and a good road
can easily be constructed
to the Union Pacific at
Bridger Station. The
Valley of Brush Creek,
east of Ashley, is about
half as large and equally
inviting. In these a
colony of ten thousand
Americans might m a k e
for themselves delightful
Farther south are several fine valleys, n o n e
quite so large as the foreTHE PROSPECTOR'S PERIM.      going, but very fertile;
and small settlemaents have been made in some of them. It is to
be noted that these valleys which open eastward from the Wasatch


~




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE?


621


are free from Mormon domination, and will remain so if settled by
Gentile colonies. It has always seemed to me that life would be exceedingly pleasant in one of these alpine valleys. The elevation is
about five thousand feet above sea-level; the winters are mild; the
summer air dry and stimulating. There is game on the hills, and
trout in the streams; land enough to produce grain for a sparse
population, and almost unlimited grazing ground.  But these districts will never sustain a large population.  Between each settled
valley and the next there will be a day's ride over barren mountain or
grassy hill. All that part of Utah east of the Wasatch will never sustain a hundred thousand people.
Wyoming contains so little farming land that it is not worth while
to discuss it; but it is rich in grazing tracts. Of the 98,000 square
miles in this Territory, one-half is complete desert; the rest good
grazing ground, with perhaps 500 sections of farming land, though I
never saw the latter and do not know where it is located. Of course
no one pre-empts his grazing land; he merely takes up meadow land:when he can get it convenient; and perhaps enough farming land for
a garden, if there is so much in the neighborhood. One year with
another the herder puts up hay enough for three months' feeding.
Sometimes none of it is used, and then it is on hand for the next
winter. About half the time' the common stock can go through the
winter without hay, living on the bunch-grass; but blooded stock
should be fed at least two months every winter. By the first of May
stock can live well on the range. From that on, the grass appears to
get more nourishing every day till December. If the winter comes
on with snow, grass remains good till the snow melts; but rain takes
the sweetness out of it. It will then sustain life, but stock lose flesh
rapidly while living on it. It requires a much larger area for the
same number of stock than in a blue-grass country, as the grass makes
but one growth per year, not renewing itself after being eaten off.
From all these facts it will be apparent that Wyoming never can sustain a very large population.
New Mexico? Well, I must as candidly as may be admit that I was
rather disgusted with it-that is, for any thing else than mountains and
scenery. Bear in mind that the central portions of New Mexico are
really older country than Ohio. Santa Fe was founded a hundred and
fifty years before Cincinnati. All the good land in the valleys of the
Rio Grande and its tributaries was long ago occupied, and the grazing
lands of the central section are taken up. West of the Rio Grarde
the country is practically worthless to a man used to the system of




622                    WESTERN WILDS.
living in Ohio. The Territory has all the faults of an old country,
and few of its virtues. As a stock-rancher you have but two chances
of success. The one adopted by most live Americans is to go in partnership with one of the nobility. If you have business ability and a
partner who can furnish the blue blood, respectability, local prestige
and land, you may in time become a capitalist, and marry ten or
twenty thousand sheep, with an incumbrance in the shape of a lady
whose priest will rule her, and her father insist on an ante-nuptial
contract that the children shall be reared in the " Holy Catholic faith."
The other plan is to go with money enough to buy a thousand sheep
and a herd-right-that is to say, be a capitalist yourself. But do n't
think of going to New Mexico to build up a fortune by hard work.
The common fellows there can work for fifty cents a day, and live
on jerked mutton and flour.
If you want to lead a wild harum-scarum sort of life for awhile,
free from social restraints, where chastity is not a requisite for good
society, and morals in general are somewhat relaxed, New Mexico is a
splendid place to sow your wild oats. As to the crop to be reaped, I
refer you to a very ancient authority. But if you think much of
yourself, better set up your sheep ranche in Colorado or Wyoming,
where there is not such an oppressive atmosphere, of gentefina, and
where the owner of two sheep is still one of the boys, and can dance
with the daughter of the man who owns a thousand. In south-western
Arizona a progressive community has been built up of late years, and
though the fertile area is small, there is still room for thousands more.
Colorado I have described at some length in a previous chapter. It
is, in my opinion, the most enlightened and progressive of all the far
western communities; though I doubt if it can ever have the population that Dakota will some day contain. Idaho I know very little
about, and of Montana practically still less. But it is universally
agreed that they are not agricultural Territories. There are valleys
in both which contain considerable good land, and large grazing
tracts; but mining will be the leading interest of both for some time.
Taken as a whole, and allowing for every possible improvement in
methods of farming and reclamation of desert lands, the whole vast
interior, between longitude 100 and the Sierra Nevadas, can never
average one acre in ten fit for the farmer; and not more than half the
rest is of any value for timber or grazing.
And can such a region ever be filled by prosperous States, which
shall rival those of the Mississippi valley? Never. All calculations
as to the shifting of political power, made on the basis of new States,




WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE.


623


rich and populous, are sure to miscarry. That section has an area
greater than that of all the States east of the Mississippi; but its population fifty years hence will not be greater than that of Massachusetts. Only in the Senate will the relative power of the East and
West be changed in the future; and probably very little there. Colorado was only admitted after a ten years' struggle. Nevada ought to
be set back to a Territorial condition to-day, if there were any constitutional way of doing justice. The child is not born that will live to
see her with population enough for one Congressional district. Here
is a liberal estimate of the maximum population these divisions are
likely to have in the year 1900:
Colorado,....                            250,000
Wyoming,....... 100,000
Dakota,........ 300,000
Idaho,....... 100,000
Washington,........ 125,000
Utah,......... 250,000
New Mexico,........ 150,000
Montana,........ 100,000
Nevada,........  75,000
Arizona,........  50,000
Total,......    1,500,000
Extraordinary discoveries may enable some one of the mining regions to get ahead of the others, but the grand total can not be greater
than here set down; and only the most favorable contingencies can
make it so great. The influence which this may have upon our social
and national life opens a wide field for discussion. The good land at
the disposal of our Government is nearly exhausted. But a few more
years and there will be no more virgin soil awaiting the immigrant.
Then the half desert lands must be won with great toil, or we must
turn back and fill up the corners which have been overrun in our rush
for the best spots. Our surplus population will then have no rich
heritage to look to, where a homestead can be had for the taking.
The paternal farm in the East must be divided again and again, if all
the boys are to have a share. What will be the effect on our discontented classes? Will it add a new strain to republican government,
and will the troubles which menace the old world monarchies then
come upon us and find us unprepared to treat them rightly? or is
there yet room in the Eastern States for us to grow harmoniously for
another century? These be momentous questions.
Certain theorists have further troubled themselves about the silver
supply; and timid editors and, politicians have suggested that if more




624


WESTERN WtILDS.


4
bonanzas are discovered, silver will soon be " cheap enough to manufacture into door-hinges."  To such I guarantee comforting proofs.
Let them invest heavily in undeveloped silver mines, and before they
get their money back they will be convinced that silver is still a
precious metal-hard to get at and correspondingly valuable when
got. One Ohio editor says: " Suppose they should discover a mountain of silver!"  Suppose they should discover a mountain of icecream in August!  The one supposition is just as reasonable as the
other.  In fact the latter phenomenon would violate fewer of the
laws of nature than the former. Unchanging law decrees that, even
in the richest mineral region, there must be many million times as
much dead rock-" attle," "rubble" and "country rock "-as silverbearing rock. Let silver permanently cheapen but 5 per cent., and
two-thirds of the mines in the world would cease to be profitable.
For another class there is comfort.  Poet and romancer, as well
as hunter and tourist, have lamented that in so short a time the wild
West would be a thing of the past; that soon all would be tame, dull
and common-place.  Let them be reassured.  The wild West will
continue wild for centuries. There will be a million square miles of
mountain, desert, rock and sand, of lonely gorge and hidden glen, of
walled basin, wind-swept caflon and timbered hills, to invite the tourist, the sportsman and the lover of solitude. The mountain Territories will long remain the abode of romance; and "Western Wilds"
will be celebrated in song and story, while generation succeeds generation of " the men who redeem them."


THE -EIND.




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