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 By kernel DUDLEY. 
 
 (M. C. Russell.) 
 
 Author of " Odd Hours," "The Lost Agate," " Straws of Humor," "A Month 
 in the Wildwood," " Evening Thoughts," "The Beaded Moccasin," etc. 
 
 "THE RIVERSIDE" PRESS: 
 MINNESOTA STATE TRAINING SCHOOL, RED WING. 
 

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 Sketches of the West I 
 
 By kernel DUDLEY. 
 
 (M. C. Russell.) 
 
 Author of "Odd Hours," "The Lost Agate," " Straws of Humor," "A Month 
 in the Wildwood," "Evening Thoughts," "The Beaded Moccasin," etc. 
 
 "THE RIVERSIDE" PRESS: 
 MINNESOTA STATE TRAINING SCHOOL, RED WING. 
 1896. = 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 The Hunted Hunter 7 
 
 Johnny Cuttmg 18 
 
 An Early Day Trip— No 1 28 
 
 An Early Day Trip— No 2 42 
 
 A Mighty Close Shave r -78 
 
 Lost in a Storm 84 
 
 On Picket 90 
 
 The Old Settler 101 
 
 Gathering Wild-Cats 103 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 THE HUNTED HUNTER. 
 
 JOHN SNOWDEN flourished in Minnesota from 1850 to 1857. 
 We knew him best, and were with him, during the year 
 1856, when civilization in this corner of the continent was 
 only in its incipiency. John was what might be called an "odd 
 genius" in his way, and in a crowd would not attract any 
 special attention — we mean in a crowd of frontiermen. Quiet to 
 an extreme, unassuming, retiring and reticent, excepting only 
 with the very few he chose to consider his particular friends. 
 
 Snowden was a famous — a professional — hunter and trapper, 
 and he did but little else but pursue the chase or take fur, during 
 the proper seasons. In the summer months he might be found 
 about the settlements or traveling up and down on the primitive 
 river craft of those early times, simply putting in the portion of 
 the year that was of but little account to him in his profession. 
 He was always a welcome guest at the humble homes of the few 
 settlers in the Minnesota River valley; for, in addition to his 
 quiet, genial manner, he loved children, and was never so happy 
 as when he was holding the little ones on his knee, telling them 
 childish stories, or, with his hunting-knife, whittling out rude 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 little toys for their enjoyment. He would make his home for 
 weeks at a time with the family of some favorite friend — amus- 
 ing the children, providing firewood for the housewife, and secur- 
 ing more or less small game for the pioneer's household; and 
 when at last the time arrived for his departure to the far-off 
 wilds for the fall, winter and early spring months, not only the 
 children, but even the older members of the family were pimply 
 grief -stricken at the loss, from their humble but happy fireside, 
 of honest, true, and noble -hearted John Snowden. 
 
 Snowden was a man who never boasted of his feats or adven- 
 tures, and though he was known far and wide as the most daring 
 woodsman in the Territory, yet it was seldom that he would per- 
 mit himself to be drawn into a relation of his vast volume of 
 experiences, during the number of years he had stood single- 
 handed among the animals of the forest, and defied the prestige 
 of the Sioux and Chippewa Indians. His intrepid and silent 
 character had gained for himself not only the respect but even 
 the superstitious awe of the two tribes, throughout and beyond 
 whose wild domain he roamed at will. Most of his hunting and 
 trapping, however, was done in the country away toward the 
 head of Lake Superior, extending clear north to the headwaters 
 of the St. Louis River, and west as far as the source of the Mis- 
 sissippi — this great area of country lying wholly in the " Chippe- 
 wa country." He would usually be lost to all human knowledge 
 and sight from about the first of October until May — save only 
 to the Indians who would occasionally meet him, and occasionally 
 entertain him for a day, perhaps, in one of their villages, on his 
 way from one portion Of the wilderness to another. When he came 
 out in the spring, however, the rich fur and peltry he would bring 
 out, would attest not only his industry, but his valor in the dar- 
 ing life he led. He always sold his furs to one particular trader 
 in the then embryo city of St. Paul. 
 
 It was during the summer of 1856 that he told us something of 
 his previous season's operations, including an adventure which 
 he said was a little out of the usnal line of his experiences in the 
 almost boundless solitudes of these northern wilds. 
 
 He had left the settlements at the usual time, and penetrated 
 the country toward Lake Superior until near Rock River, where 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 he found an encampment of Indians, with whom he remained 
 over night. The village was a large one, and with his experience 
 among the sons of the forest, he quickly discovered that some- 
 thing unusual exercised the minds of the assembled red men. 
 There were many branches of the tribe there that he had never 
 seen before, and many who had never seen a white man — men, 
 women and children, with their rude accoutrements, were as- 
 sembled there, and apparently without previous arrangement, as 
 everything seemed topsy-turvy about the hastily organized 
 village. 
 
 When he entered the village, near nightfall, he created a com- 
 motion that prettj' nearly bordered upon consternation. The 
 wel^sh dogs, the squaws, the children and many of the men, 
 seemed to think that some evil spirit had fallen among them, and 
 their excitement was becoming intense, when an aged chief came 
 suddenly upon the scene of the excitement, and seeing the white 
 hunter, instantly recognized him, and gave him a hearty greeting, 
 bidding him welcome to the village with almost wild gesticula- 
 tions of joy. He turned to the affrighted villagers, and addressed 
 them in a loud, commanding voice. He told them that the pale- 
 faced brother who had come among them was a mighty hunter, 
 and a friend of all who were friendly to him, and that instead of 
 being frightened they ought to dance with joy that he had been 
 sent to them by the Great Spirit at a time when they needed the 
 strong words of a brave man so greatly. 
 
 Then the whole village pressed around, and viewed his strange 
 gun, accoutrements and dress, with amazement; the squaws 
 seemed most impressed with the sight of his long, brown, silken 
 hair, and they begged the old chief to permit them to stroke it 
 with their hands. Snowden, seeing the wonder they evinced, 
 took his mighty knife from its jeweled scabbard and quickly cut 
 off a liberal lock and handed it to them, and while they warily 
 passed it from one to another, assembling in groups to examine 
 it, the old chief motioned him away and conducted him to his 
 wigwam in the center of the village. 
 
 Here he bade the white hunter be seated on the carpet of soft 
 skins, and after ordering his women to prepare some rice and 
 dried meat for his guest, he lighted his friendly pipe and, seated 
 
10 Sketches of the West. 
 
 together, they took alternate draws of the kinnekinnic from a long- 
 stemmed stone pipe, 
 
 Snowden, from the moment he entered the village, felt that 
 some unusual anxiety oppressed the Indians, and when the old 
 chief was seated he promptly asked if anything was wrong with 
 them. His first thought was that the Indians must either be 
 contemplating a war against their always bitter enemy, the Sioux, 
 or else that they had heard of a terrible defeat of their tribe by 
 the Sioux, or something of that sort, and asked the chief if such 
 was the case. The venerable Indian replied negatively to this 
 inquiry, however, and told the hunter he was right in his surmise 
 that they were troubled, but their anxiety was of quite a different 
 nature. He told him that the "bad spirit beast," away from the 
 far north, had again invaded their hunting grounds, and that his 
 people were sorely troubled, and had congregated for counsel. 
 
 Snowden at once divined the character of their fears, for he 
 recollected that he had heard of the superstitious awe in which 
 the Indians held a certain ferocious wild beast, that at long inter- 
 vals came down into their country from the far northern British 
 Possessions — an animal which he from the descriptions he had 
 heard of it, and from his knowledge of natural history, called the 
 British Jaguar. 
 
 These dangerous animals, as he learned from the old chief, 
 only visited the region as far south as the section in which he 
 and his band lived and hunted, once in three, four or five years; 
 and aside from their ferocious character, the Indians held their 
 appearance in their country as an omen of terrible import, fore- 
 boding dreadful troubles from smallpox, war, and a scarcety of 
 food of all kinds. The chief said that when these bad animals 
 came, the Indians rapidly assembled into villages, and during the 
 stay of the beasts, very little hunting was done, and even that 
 little was done in companies; no Indian would venture anywhere 
 alone, until these terrible creatures were known to have returned 
 to the north. 
 
 Snowden inquired of the chief how long this animal had been in 
 the woods thereabout, in what locality it was last heard, etc. 
 He was told that its presence had only been discovered a few 
 days before, and it seemed to have its headquarters not far north 
 
Sketches of the West. 11 
 
 of Kettle River — the very section to which Snowden was then on 
 his way. He told the chief this, but the old Indian said he 
 supposed now that he had heard of the bad animal being there, 
 that he would go no further in that direction. Snowden assured 
 him, however, that he did not fear the brute, and w-)uld try and 
 rid the country of its presence if possible, and bring peace and 
 happiness again to the chief's band. The old man clasped the 
 white hunter by both hands, and assured him in his own tongue 
 — which Snowden could speak and understand as well as his own 
 language — that such a thing as his capturing the animal would 
 be impossible: and that he would surely be devoured by the 
 brute if he went within his range: but if the Great Spirit 
 could permit him to rid his hunting grounds of this animal 
 with the evil eye, his band would never be able to do too much 
 for him. Snowden laughed at the old chief's fears and excitement, 
 told him he would now eat his rice and meat and then lie down 
 to sleep; that in the morning he would be off early: that he had a 
 camp, which he had occupied the previous season, right in the 
 range of the bad animal, as reported; and he thought he would 
 be able to re-establish his camp, secure his usual amount of fur 
 and get out alive — at least he should try the experiment. 
 
 During the night the chief informed his band of the determina- 
 tion of the white hunter, and when Snowden took his departure 
 for the north next morning, the whole village assembled to bid 
 him godspeed, in their simple yet emphatic way, upon what they 
 conceived to be a most desperate undertaking. They beat their 
 rude drums, danced up and down and sang their wildest songs 
 until the hunter was lost both to sight and hearing. 
 
 In a couple of days more Snowden arrived at his old camping 
 place, for that section, and spent the first day in putting things 
 to rights for the coming winter's campaign. Of course, in his 
 approach thereto, he had kept his eyes and ears open for signs 
 or pounds of the strange animal within whose haunts, according 
 to Indian authority, he then was — and he knew his information 
 on the subject could be well relied upon. The old chief was one 
 of the most reliable men in the tribe, as he had learned when he 
 met him two years before at a general counsel which took place 
 many miles to the south of where his band made their home. 
 
12 Sketches of the Wes}. 
 
 His first night in camp was spent, until a late hour, in putting 
 his hunting implements and his steel traps in good condition, and 
 at last he turned into his bunk and was soon wrapped in slumber 
 — though he always slept lightly, the least unusual noise serving 
 to arouse him at any time. 
 
 He did not know how long he had been asleep, but it must 
 have been well toward morning, when he was startled from his 
 slumber by what seemed to him the most unearthly sound he 
 had ever heard. He sprang to his feet and grasped his trusty 
 rifle and knife; the sound echoed and re-echoed through the woods, 
 making the lonely wilderness doubly hideous by the terrible 
 shriek, ending in a sort of deep and plaintive moan, that was 
 certainly the most chilling sound, taken as a whole, that the 
 imagination could create. He listened breathlessly for probably 
 ten liiinutes or longer, when the shrieking moan began again, 
 occupying nearly half a minute from first to last, and seemed a 
 combination of howl, shriek, roar and a crying moan-like sound, 
 not wholly unlike the agonized utterance of the human voice. 
 "This is the Indians' 'bad animal,' thought Snowden, "and, 
 verily, if its size and ferocious appearance is even half in propor- 
 tion to its awful voice, it must indeed be a formidable enemy — 
 one that would test the purest bravery to meet face to face." 
 
 One peculiarity in the sound he very quickly observed; that 
 was, the difficulty in locating it, exactly. The weird sound 
 seemed to be on all sides of him, as it were; or, one part of its 
 scream seemed to be at one point, while another section of it had 
 the effect of changing its locality a considerable distance, until, 
 after listening to the whole series it was difficult to tell just in 
 what direction it was located. He noticed, however, that the 
 very last part of the sound seemed to most surely point to the 
 place from whence it proceeded. He felt relieved, after an hour 
 had passed in studying the singular sound, to know that it was 
 coming no nearer to his camp, and that it remained at a consider- 
 able distance. Thus he spent the remainder of the night paying- 
 strict attention to an entertainment that was as terrible in its 
 character as it was new to even his ear, which was so well versed 
 in the multitude of night-sounds in the unexplored wilderness. 
 He was struck by the tremendous power of the beast's voice, 
 
Sketches of the West. 13 
 
 which, in the otherwise silent night, seemed to almost jar the 
 forest with its weight. Just in the gray of dawn he heard it for 
 the last time, and apparently at a greater distance. 
 
 After he had eaten his morning meal of dried meat and rice, 
 he prepared his camp to resist the invasion of wild beasts during 
 his day's absence, and after carefully loading his rifle, and get- 
 ting his ammunition, knife, hand-ax, etc., in perfect shape for 
 either offensive or defensive operations, he made a pack of his 
 steel traps and started to spend the day in looking up good trap- 
 ping sites and putting out his traps along the little streams and 
 around small lakes in the neighborhood. 
 
 As may well be inferred he kept his eyes and ears about him — 
 no less the latter than the former. He was satisfied that his 
 guess of its character was generally correct, although he had 
 never seen one; and still, judging from what he had heard during 
 the night just gone, he was convinced that he had underestimated 
 the size and powder of the animal. He felt sure of its cat-like 
 character, and 'knew that to be prepared for its reception meant 
 pimply, never to be unprepared, for a single moment, either night 
 or day. He was convinced that it was aware of his presence, and 
 in all probability would hover on his trail, wherever he went. 
 He had confidence in his ability to cope with the animal, provid- 
 ing it did not come upon him when he was not ready for action — 
 a thing he determined not to permit. John Snowden was simply 
 a dead shot with his rifle, cool and determined in all emergencies, 
 and fearing nothing. 
 
 During the day he found good trapping grounds, with " signs " 
 indicating that fur was at least as abundant as upon the occasion 
 of his other expedition to this particular part of the country. 
 In early evening he again reached his main camp, without hav- 
 ing seen or heard anything of the animal that had so terrified 
 the Indians, both by its formidable character and the ill-omens 
 they had attached to it. 
 
 He spent the succeeding night in complete readiness for any 
 probable emergency, but the morning came and nothing had been 
 heard of it. To most men this silence would have proven a relief, 
 and been indicative that the animal had withdrawn from the 
 neighborhood: but Snowden was not the man to believe in any 
 
14 Sketches of the Went, 
 
 such theory, nor to relax his watchfulness for an instant. He 
 rather felt more oppressed by the silence, than otherwise. For 
 that day he had laid out a somewhat extended trip, which would 
 necessitate his camping in the woods, wherever night might over- 
 take him. Accordingly he again put his main camp into condi- 
 tion to leave in safety, and, preparing himself for a two days, 
 jaunt — including a visit to his traps on his return the next day — 
 he set off at an early hour, and passed the day without molesta- 
 tion, or the slightest intimation of the presence of the dangerous 
 animal. 
 
 As night came on, Snowden prepared his camp in a clump of 
 pines, in the midst of considerable fallen timber. He provided 
 himself with plenty of firewood and kept up a bright little camp- 
 fire, as indeed was quite necessary, for the weather was very 
 frosty, although no snow, had yet fallen. After his "hunter's 
 supper," he filled his capacious pipe and stretched himself upon 
 the ground for a long reverie and an equally long smoke. Thus 
 he lay, sending up curls of the blue smoke into the frosty air, 
 and dreamily gazed into the burning embers, forming pictures in 
 the fire of many a familiar face and many an enchanting land- 
 scape, in miniature. At last when quite late, he roused up, 
 replenished the fire with wood, and spread his blanket upon the 
 ground preparatory to taking a trapper's snooze. But, he had 
 not even lain down, ere he was made emphatically aware that he 
 had other matters to attend to than that of spending the remain- 
 der of the night in sleep^the Jaguar was with him, and had no 
 doubt been near him in all his travels of the day, stealthily, from 
 convenient cover, watching his every movement. 
 
 The first knowledge he had of its presence, was one of those 
 unearthly yelling and screaming moans, that made the wilderness 
 fairly quake with its force, and the hunter's hair stand on end. 
 Snowden snatched his rifle quickly, examined its condition, and 
 with his knife and hand-ax in place, he seated himself near the 
 fire, in the angle of two logs he had previously rolled together, 
 and with his back to the fire, he crouched in a comfortable 
 position to await developments. Occasionally, with one hand, he 
 would reach to his store of wood and replenish his camp-fire. 
 At intervals of about fifteen minutes the beast would give vent to 
 
Sketches of the West. 15 
 
 its awful chorus, and Snowden was convinced that it was stealth- 
 ily traveling in a circle around his camp, and at no great distance 
 from him. Gradually, as the hours wore on, the animal evidently 
 contracted its circle, drawing nearer and nearer. Its screams, 
 too, grew less frequent, until at last they ceased altogether. 
 Then it was that the hunter's eyes and ears were primed to their 
 utmost tension, in order that he might not be taken unawares; 
 his wood was growing scarce, and this gave him no little uneasi- 
 ness, for he knew that the fire would play an effective part in 
 warding off an attack, for there is no wild beast but that is 
 afraid of fire. For a long time he heard nothing, but at last he 
 heard a dry stick break under the foot of the beast, and as it 
 drew nearer in its circles he could keep note of its position by the 
 occasional breaking of a dry twig under its tread, although its 
 crouching step was otherwise as cat-like and silent as the grave. 
 Finally, even these evidences ceased altogether, and the hunter 
 was completely nonplussed. His fire was growing fainter and 
 fainter, and he could scarcely have dared to cease his vigilant 
 watch to have put on more wood even if there had been more. 
 
 The hunter was now wrought up to a much higher strain of 
 anxiety (as under the circumstances he had ample reason to be), 
 than he had ever been before in all his scores of hunting adven- 
 tures. There he was, almost within the grasp of a vastly more 
 ferocious beast than he had ever seen, and of whose mighty power 
 he was fully aware. It had him, too, at a frightful disadvantage; 
 the brute could see him, through its cat-like orbs, whilst he could 
 not even guess at its exact location — it had its restless and greedy 
 gaze upon him, watching his every motion, while he strained his 
 eyes out into the darkness, all about the circle continually, in a 
 vain hope of even getting a glimpse of its body. 
 
 After what seemed to be an age, Snowden saw what looked 
 like two glowing balls of fire, as the dim light of the fagots re- 
 flected upon them, just above a big log that lay some four or five 
 rods away; he knew these to be the eyes of the monster, and mon- 
 ster he now judged it to really be, as the eyes seemed to be 
 many inches apart. His last chance for his life had now come, 
 and, without taking his eyes from those of the terrible animal, 
 he silently, and so gradually as to scarcely move at all, placed his 
 
16 Sketches of the West. 
 
 rifle, at a rest, across the log, put his body into an easy position 
 to take as accurate an aim as possible in the darkness. He knew 
 if he missed, it would be the " hunter's last shot," sure enough. 
 The beast remained immovable, its eyes fixed upon him, and its 
 body, no doubt, in perfect position for a last spring upon its prey, 
 at the least move on his part. 
 
 Snowden finally obtained a position that enabled him to get a 
 look along his gun-barrel, while the cold sweat stood out all over 
 him, and his whole frame seemed chilled to the marrow; at last, 
 being convinced that he had the best aim possible, he pulled the 
 trigger, his old " trusty " bawled out its certain sound, and sent 
 thundering echoes to play among the hills. At the crash of the 
 gun — which was heavily loaded — the beast gave a spring appar- 
 ently twenty feet into the air, with the yell of a dying demon, and 
 fell heavily back to the ground in a death agony — the terrible 
 creature had met and succumbed to its master, and that immedi- 
 ate region had been cleared of its terror to the simple-minded 
 sons and daughters who made it their home. 
 
 Snowden did not inspect the "fruit of his victory " until morn- 
 ing, when he found that he had struck the animal squarely 
 between the eyes; it was a sort of yellowish-gray in color, with 
 tremendous legs, claws and teeth, and a monstrous head. He 
 could not guess accurately of its weight, but it measured over 
 nine feet in length, from tip to tip, and although furs and peltry 
 were extremely low in the market, he afterward received sixty-eight 
 dollars in gold for its skin and head. 
 
 In the course of a fortnight after he had killed the monster, 
 Snowden bethought him that it would doubtless be welcome news 
 to the Indian band, who had been driven away from their hunt- 
 ing grounds by the "bad spirit beast," to know of its death, and 
 to know that probable prosperity would again be their portion, 
 So, he resolved to visit the village, and carry with him the skin, 
 head and paws of the animal, by way of proof to them that the 
 cause of their melancholy had surely been removed. The skin 
 he had already dried and tanned, as well as prepared the head 
 and paws, so that their weight was not greater than he could 
 pack. Accordingly, after fixing his camp in good shape to leave 
 three or four days, and putting his traps into proper condition he 
 
Sketches of the West. 17 
 
 set out one clear, frosty morning for the village. By taking a 
 direct course he arrived early the next day, and when he inform- 
 ed the old chief and his band of the destruction of their enemy, 
 and spread before them its monster skin, head and ugly paws, 
 the whole village became well-nigh frantic with rejoicing. John 
 Snowden was almost worn out by the pulling and hauling 
 they gave him in their grateful enthusiasm. The trophies were 
 hung up on a high cross-stick laid in upright forks, and during 
 the remainder of that day and all the following night the Indians 
 held high carnival in honor of the mighty white hunter, and of 
 the victory he had achieved over the evil beast that had caused 
 them such discontent. They danced, beat their drums, yelled 
 and gesticulated, and wound up the festival by a grand dog feast, 
 Snowden being assigned to the post of honor at the mighty ban- 
 quet of fat dog. The old chief tendered the white hunter his 
 daughter in marriage, which, in a delicate way, Snowden declined. 
 He was, however, made the recipient of a host of presents from 
 the Indians, such as prettily ornamented moccasins, pipes, 
 pouches, and beaded belts, while the chief presented him with a 
 magnificent robe made of otter skins. The band immediately 
 made preparations to scatter to their hunting grounds again, and 
 two of the young Indians volunteered to accompany the white 
 hunter back to his camp to assist him in packing his trophy and 
 the long list of presents that had been forced upon him. 
 
 It is probably unnecessary to add that John Snowden never 
 lacked for true friends and admirers among old Black Otter's 
 band of Chippewas. It will doubtless be of interest, however to 
 know that a few" years latter he did marry the beautiful daughter 
 of Black Otter, after all, and is now a successful trader at one of 
 our Noi'thwestern Indian agencies, living happily with his now 
 educated and accomplished Indian wife — once called, "Singing 
 Water." 
 
JOHNNY CUTTING. 
 
 IN the year 1857, long before a railroad was built from St. Pau 
 to the head of Lake Superior, when the vast region lying be- 
 tween the two points named was a peculiarly hideous wilder- 
 ness, the writer was one of a party of four who penetrated that 
 country nearly up to the St. Louis River. Our object was recre- 
 ation and adventure. At Cross Lake, where the early Catholic 
 missionaries for a long time conducted an Indian mission, we 
 halted for a month, with our headquarters not far from the old 
 mission buildings. The Indians in the neighborhood were friend- 
 ly, and it was not long before our party was on such good terms 
 with them that we could leave our camp for days together with- 
 out finding anything disturbed on our return. From this point 
 we made extended trips into the wilderness, in various directions, 
 taking with us a light camping outfit, of course including guns, 
 compasses, etc., and carrying enough provisions to answer for the 
 trip in view. Sometimes, however, we were thrown wholly upon 
 the resources of the country: though we were never sorely in 
 want of provisions, as game was quite plentiful, and we killed 
 many deer and three bears, beside considerable smaller game, dur- 
 ing our month's explorations. 
 
 One of our longest trips was to the northwestward of Cross 
 Lake, in making which we came one day, about the middle of the 
 afternoon, to an immense windfall. A particularly fierce tornado 
 had passed through the dense forest, uprooting the trees and pil- 
 ing them confusedly in a ridge that extended for miles. This 
 windfall was the greatest and most difficult to cross of any the 
 writer has ever seen, though we have observed many in the thick 
 
Sketches of the West. 19 
 
 pine woods of the far northwestern country. 
 
 We had designed going some distance further in the direction 
 we were traveling: and though the huge windfall we encountered 
 was a barrier not easily surmounted by men with tired limbs and 
 heavy packs, v/e resolved to cross it on account of the novelty of 
 the experience, as well as forather reasons. The point at which 
 we struck the windfall was in a dense pine growth where the trees 
 had stood to a great size and height. Their trunks, as they lay 
 piled upon each other, were as white as bones, and formed a very 
 high ridge about twenty rods in width. 
 
 After a rest of half an hour, a little luncheon and a smoke, our 
 party commenced the ascent. In our clamber we met with not a 
 few mishaps, and indulged in hearty laughter as one, then an- 
 other, of the party would go tumbling, pack and all, away down 
 among the great logs. At length we gained the summit, the 
 writer having the good fortune to reach the topmost log of the 
 ridge a trifle in advance of the others, and to his utter surprise 
 he met, at the highest point, face to face with a human being, who 
 was known at a glance to be certainly not an Indian. Both were 
 equally astonished at the sight of each other: for, as we came up 
 simultaneously to the same log, the stranger gave a sort of gut- 
 teral exclamation of surprise, and started backward, with a crit- 
 ical look and a decided air of distrust. He was not over five feet, 
 five inches in height, and was of slight figure, though he evi- 
 dently possessed great wiriness and agility, with a capacity for 
 extreme endurance. He had a small beard, yet his face was 
 strikingly effeminate, with a finely cut mouth and nose, and eyes 
 that were wonderfully expressive — a pretty dark blue, and wear- 
 ing a look of saddest cast. His hands and feet were extremely 
 small for a man, and his entire appearance though weather-beat- 
 en and sad-like, betokened refinement of person and character. 
 His hair — the most striking feature about this singular being — 
 though evidently little cared for, hung in long, brown ringlets 
 about his head and shoulders. He was dressed entirely in buck- 
 skin, excepting his cap, which was of mink fur trimmed with 
 beads and porcupine quills. 
 
 Our party, on reaching the place of meeting, took seats on the 
 log, while the mysterious stranger seated himself on the heavy 
 
20 Sketches of the West. 
 
 pack he had been carrying, a rod distant. For a moment we 
 looked him over without speaking and he gave each of us a 
 searching look from head to foot. The writer first broke the sil- 
 ence by an inquiry as to who he was. He said he wasn't anybody, 
 and returned the question. We briefly informed him who we 
 were, and what we were there for — our mission in that region be- 
 ing nothing in particular. He asked us where we were going; 
 and we told him it was our wish to go in the direction we were 
 traveling as far as the upper Kettle River. In response to our 
 questions regarding that region, and the exact direction to it, he 
 informed us in a few words that we would be quite the opposite 
 from welcome in the Kettle River country, as the Indians would 
 consider us intruders upon their hunting-grounds, and might con- 
 clude to make it extremely warm for us. 
 
 This man did not seem disposed to do much talking, and his 
 mode of speech was decidedly strange. There was a peculiar cut- 
 off to every sentence, and to almost evey word. We judged this 
 to be owing to his long association with the Indians, as in his 
 speech there was the gutteral tone common to most Indian lan- 
 guages. In reply to our question as to the location of his head- 
 quarters, he told us that they were almost anywhere, but that 
 just then his camp was three miles distant, where, as it was near- 
 ly night, we would be made welcome, if we chose to accompany 
 him. After a brief consultation we determined to accept his in- 
 vitation, because, aside from a desire to find a camp already made 
 for the night, we had a strong desire to learn more of the peculiar 
 being we had met in so singular a manner in so outlandish a part 
 of the country. 
 
 We all shouldered our packs, and were soon in Indian file, fol- 
 lowing our guide through the mossy cranberry marshes and over 
 pine ridges. He carried a pack consisting of furs, deer skins, 
 dried meat, and a few blackened and battered utensils, the whole 
 weighing nearly one hundred pounds. He packed in true Indian 
 style. The bundle was secured by rawhide thongs, and around, 
 it a wide belt of the same, which he passed over his head, allow- 
 ing the band to rest on his forehead. When he arose to his feet 
 the pack rested at the small of the back, just above the hips. It 
 was a perfect wonder to our party to see a person of so slight a 
 
Sketches of the West. 21 
 
 build carry such a load, and that, too, with such apparent ease. 
 He traveled fast, and halted but once in the three miles, and then 
 for a moment only, whilst the strongest man in our party, with 
 but half the load, was well-nigh fagged out inkeeping pace with 
 our guide. 
 
 We found his camp in a romantic spot, on the shore of a small 
 lake, the waters of which were clearer, if possible, than plate glass, 
 whence flowed a beautiful little stream, winding down through a 
 deep, mossy dell, with evergreens along either bank, and bril- 
 liant-colored vines reflecting their varied beauty in the crystal- 
 like water below. Both lake and brook were inhabited by thou- 
 sands of lucious trout. His camp consisted of a roomy, birch- 
 bark wigwam, in which there were evidences of scrupulous neat- 
 ness and good oder. At one end was a low, wide bunk, and the 
 bed was wholly made of skins and furs. First was a lot of dried 
 grass, gathered from the neighboring meadows; on the top of this 
 were spread sheets made of deer-skins, which had been tanned 
 after the peculiar mode of the Indians, and were as soft as velvet. 
 At the head was a large pillow filled with moss. Over all were 
 two fur spreads or robes, which had also been tanned so as to 
 leave them pliable as a woolen blanket. At the side of the wig- 
 wam was a rude table made of rawhide stretched over stakes 
 which were driven into the ground. Above this were two or 
 three ingeniously constructed shelves, containing various articles. 
 Of the latter, some bore evidence of being the productions of civ- 
 ilization, and others were ingenious and pretty specimens of the 
 handiwork of native women. In one corner were arranged, in an 
 orderly way, quite a number of steel traps of various sizes; and 
 close by was a receptacle for a hunting-knife, ammunition, gun, 
 tomahawk and other implements of the chase. The floor, which 
 was the ground, was covered with coarse matting, braided from 
 the marsh-flag. Two or three rude stools, in addition, composed 
 the inside furnishing of this strange abode. In a hasty 
 glance at the articles on the shelves, we discovered a small, 
 cracked mirror, in a frame of bark, a dingy copy of Scott's Po- 
 ems, and three or four other very smoky-looking volumes, and a 
 well worn picture case, but we did not venture to peer inside the 
 dingy case to see what picture might be there though we hazard- 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 ed a silent guess, which several years afterward we found to have 
 been a correct surmise. His fireplace was outside, and directly 
 in front of the aperature which served as a door. It consisted 
 of two forked sticks driven into the ground, with a pole 
 across, from which latter an extremely ancient-looking iron ket- 
 tle was suspended by a small iron chain. This kettle, with a 
 broken skillet, a dented copper vessel and a birchen bucket, com- 
 posed the culinary outfit. 
 
 - Seeing we were tired, our entertainer asked us to enter his wig- 
 wam and rest, whilst he prepared some supper. We complied: 
 but the writer, however, after resting inside for a few minutes, 
 volunteered to assist in preparing the meal. After starting a 
 fire by means of a flint and steel and some dry spunk-wood, the 
 host produced from behind the wigwam what he called his 
 "trout-persuader," and started for the lake beach. This con- 
 trivance was simply a net, about three feet square, finely and 
 evenly woven from the fiber of a water plant, and stretched on 
 two parallel sticks, held in position by two crops sticks, lashed 
 at each end by thongs of rawhide, the tension being ruch as to 
 admit of the net bagging down slightly in the middle. It was 
 with no little curiosity that we followed him closely to the shore 
 of the lake, to see how he could capture the wary trout with such 
 a contrivance; and indeed, as we soon saw, no ordinary mortal 
 could have succeeded with it. He motioned us to remain a little 
 back, while he, taking the net by the two handles, glided softly 
 along a small bay, driving a school of the speckled treasures 
 quietly before him, until he came near a sharp nook, which, 
 through a narrow passage, led to a miniature bay within, a few 
 feet across. When the school was about opposite the entrance 
 to this, he made a quick upward and outward motion of the net, 
 and simultaneously with this he leaped, with the quickness of a 
 flash, and set his net nearly perpendicular in the mouth of this 
 natural trap. Of course, the fish, recovering from their first 
 fright, would dart instantly for deep water again, but not until 
 his net was snugly placed in their way. He had made it to fit 
 the entrance to the grotto exactly, and when the trout darted 
 for their freedom they ran into the bag of the net, and the next 
 instant found themselves — a dozen or more — landed high and drv 
 
Sketches of the West. 23 
 
 upon the beach by another motion of their captor, equal in quick- 
 ness to the one that had imprisoned them. 
 
 What with dried meat, chipped up and stewed in the iron pot, 
 trout fried in deer's marrow, wild rice, the iDread our party car- 
 ried, seasoned by the keenest of appetites, our supper and break- 
 fast with this lone man of the wilderness were among the most 
 enjoyable of all the meals we ever ate. 
 
 After supper, as we all reclined about the camp-fire, enjoying 
 our pipes — all save our host, who said he never used tobacco in 
 any form — we essayed to draw out the mysterious stranger, and 
 ascertain if possible, something of his history. This, however, 
 we knew to be a dehcate task, as his manner, though extremely 
 courteous and hospitable, seemed distant and reticent, save on 
 topics of the present. Nevertheless we resolved to try, though 
 every inquiry was put in the most casual way lest we should 
 arouse in him a feeling of resentment, or a suspicion that we 
 intended to be impertinent. In response to various questions, we 
 were informed that it had been several years since he had seen a 
 white man: that he never went out to the trading-posts, but did 
 his trading through the Indians; that he was thirty years of age, 
 and had entered that region alone when a very j^oung man, and 
 never intended to abandon the wild life he had led so long — a life 
 of constant adventure and hardship, with no companion save his 
 gun, and holding no intercourse with the human family save the 
 Indians of that remote region, nor often with them; that the In- 
 dians were friendly at all times when he met them: that his name 
 among the whites was John Cutting, but that the Indians had 
 named him " The Silent Walker." 
 
 It was with some hesitation that he told us his parents and 
 relatives were among the first families of central Illinois, and 
 wealthy. His reason for abandoning a life of ease and luxury, at 
 an age when he was just entering upon the joys and pleasures of 
 the world, he declined to state. 
 
 After breakfast in the morning we made preparations for re- 
 turning to our camp at Cross Lake, and Cutting said he would 
 accompany us for a few miles, as soon as he could put his camp 
 in order and get a few things packed for a tramp: that he was go- 
 
24 S}:etches of the West. 
 
 ing to the lower Grindstone River on a trapping expedition, to be 
 gone several days. 
 
 Accordingly, an hour after the morning meal, we all started, 
 with him as our guide again. Just before noon we reached a 
 trail, by taking which, Cutting said we could save a considerable 
 distance, and pointing in the direction we must go, without say- 
 ing a word he grasped each one of us warmly by the hand, turned 
 sharply to the left of our course, and in an instant more "The 
 Silent Walker " had disappeared in the forest. 
 
 Nearly five years after our exploring party had returned from 
 the remote region of the St. Louis River, the tocsin of civil war 
 was sounded, and thousands of the young men of the country 
 quickly responded, the writer of these pages among the rest. I 
 — to speak in the first person singular — went fifty miles alone and 
 on foot to the barracks, found the commandant and mustering 
 officer promptly, and told him Idepired to enter the first regiment 
 from my State as a private soldier. He informed me that my 
 chance was hardly good even in the last company of the pecond 
 regiment, so rapidly had volunteers poured in at all hours during 
 the day and night. Although reluctant to join any but the regi- 
 ment of my choice, yet enthusiastic in the idea of serving my 
 country, I was mustered and directed to report for duty to Capt. 
 
 , whose quarters in a certain section of the fort were pointed 
 
 out to me. Going thither, I was admitted to a large room con- 
 taining nearly a hundred new recruits. All was bustle and con- 
 fusion. The captain gave me a suit of "regimentals," knapsack 
 and blanket, and the orderly sergeant assigned me to a bunk 
 with another recruit in the quarters, and I found him engaged 
 in fixing up the bed. As I stepped forward he turned about, 
 looking me squarely in the face, as if to see what sort of a chum 
 had been given him. The recognition was mutual and almost 
 instantaneous — my bunk-companion was none other than Johnny 
 Cutting, " The Silent Walker." To say that each was astonished 
 be^'ond measvire at this second strange meeting, but feebly ex- 
 presses it: and that night we talked long and freely concerning 
 matters that mutually interested us. 
 
 Cutting seemed to consider himself verv fortunate to have met 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 some one whose face he had seen before: and during the time 
 that followed, although he was ever courteous and obliging to all 
 his companions in arms, he was never known to converse with 
 those about him much more than the rules of war demanded, ex- 
 cepting with the writer, whom he always sought to be near, and 
 to whose mess he was always sure to belong. 
 
 No man in the Union army was a better soldier than Johnny 
 Cutting. He always kept his clothing clean and orderly, his gun 
 and equipments bright and ready for use at an instant's notice. 
 He was was orderly to an extreme: and his example in the com- 
 pany w^as more potent in enforcing good order and dicipline than 
 the scowls of an exacting officer. When the long roll was sound- 
 ed, calling the regiment to arms, night or day, he was sure to be 
 the first to report on the company's parade ground, in perfect 
 readiness for battle. I never saw a man who was as quick, and 
 yet undemonstrative, in his motions as he, nor a soldier who per- 
 sistently sought to be at the fi-ont in every danger and hardship 
 that presented, of which there was no lack. His favorite place 
 was on the picket line, and his commander was not long in learn- 
 ing his value in the most responsible position of a soldier — that 
 of a picket in front of the enemy. 
 
 Little by little, and in a disconnected way, I learned the story 
 of Johnny Cutting's life: and it was, in its beginning, the old, 
 old story, of love and disappointment. 
 
 He was the son of a wealthy Illinois farmer. From childhood 
 he had grown up in company with Mary Allen, the sweet, blue- 
 eyed daughter of a near neighbor. They had attended school 
 together, from the days of their a, b, c's until they had graduated 
 with honor from the best institution of learning in that part of 
 the State. They had spent their vacations mostly in each other's 
 company, and their hearts' tendrils had become so entwined, 
 that to part them would be worse than death itself — at least to 
 the warm and devoted nature of Johnny Cutting. The story of 
 his love may be a short one, though no number of strong words 
 could do more than justice to a man with such a heart and nature 
 as his — true to every instinct of nobility and honor, with an un- 
 wavering fidelity to all convictions of right, and whose affection, 
 once bestowed, was placed forever and unretrievably. 
 
26 Sketches of the West. 
 
 When Mary Allen weakened in her love for Johnny Cutting, 
 and in the daze of an hour gave way to the blandishments of a 
 fashionably -dressed and jewel-bespangled sprig from the city, 
 who spent his summer vacation in the neighborhood, she blasted 
 the life of one she knew to be her equal, and whose love for her 
 had so increased in the course of their many years of companion- 
 ship as to attain a strength and tenderness which the trials of 
 a life-time could not tarnish. 
 
 Alone, in her father's grounds, beneath the twinkling stars, 
 they met for the last time, and the very rose-leaves let fall their 
 dewy tears as she told him of her perfidous rejection of his hand 
 for that of another. Without a word of reproach, he passed down 
 the avenue into the road, his frame quivering like an aspen in a 
 storm. As he closed the gate he turned around and halted but 
 for an instant, to catch one more glimpse of her who had been the 
 idol of his life. With uncovered head he waved her a parting 
 kiss, exclaiming in a husky voice. "God bless you, Mary, my 
 darling! Farewell forever!" And he was lost to Mary Allen's 
 sight for all time. 
 
 He hastily bade adieu to his parents, telling them he contem- 
 plated a trip to the northwestern part of the country. Packing 
 together a few things, and placing his savings in his purse, he 
 embarked on a Mississippi river steamer, buying a, ticket for the 
 young city of St. Paul, at which place he turned his back for- 
 ever, as he intended, upon his own race. 
 
 Almost at the very outbreak of the war he chanced to hear the 
 story of the attack on Fort Sumter, and became aware of the cer- 
 tainty of a gigaotic civil war. He sat musing by his camp-fire 
 the entire night upon the stirring news he had heard, by the mer- 
 est chance, through a trader who was making a trip through that 
 region, and whom he had met at a gathering of Indians assem- 
 bled for traffic. By morning his decision w^as reached. He gave 
 all his effects to an old Indian family, they having nearly always, 
 through their attachment for him, camped in his vicinity, moving 
 their camp whenever he moved his, from one section of that wil- 
 derness region to another. He started the day following that on 
 which he had received the news, and in three days travel he 
 reached Fort Snelling, and was mustered into the armv but an 
 
Sketches of the We^t. 
 
 hour or two in advance of the writer. He had determined, dur- 
 ing his night-revery far away in the wilderness, to do the only 
 thing left him to do, of any value to himself or others in the 
 world, by placing himself at the disposal of his country in her 
 hour of need, and if needs be lay his life upon her altar. 
 
 His regiment passed through many battles, and suffered its full 
 share of the hardships and casualties of the field, and Johnny 
 Cutting stood in the front rank of his command without the loss 
 of an hour from duty. He had been in the thickest of many a 
 bloody battle, and come out with scarcely a scratch. He sought 
 the hottest of the fight, steadily and cooly loading and firing, while 
 in the use of the bayonet his quickness of movement and unwav- 
 ering courage made him a terrible adversary. 
 
 At the desperate battle of Mission Ridge, the Union army had 
 to charge up the bold range of hills in an endeavor to get a foot- 
 ing on the uplands, where the Confederate army was massed in 
 great force. The Federals were repulsed again and again in their 
 terrible and heroic efforts to capture the Confederate batteries 
 poo'ted along the brink of the ridge which were dealing death in 
 all directions among the bluecoats in the plain below. 
 
 The day wore on in its terrible work, and the hillsides and val- 
 ley were thickly strewn with the dead and the dying: but the 
 heights were taken, and about the Confederate batteries the final 
 struggle ensued. The after-spectacle told plainly the tale of the 
 carnage and the stubbornness with which the enemy had defend- 
 ed their guns. The depleted ranks of the Federals needed no 
 explanation of what the victory had cost them, as the storm- 
 ing regiments bivouacked on the field of blood. 
 
 Among the dead gathered for interment the next day, the hero 
 of this sketch was found, with many other bodies, on the verge 
 of a ledge which he and his companions had scaled. He lay 
 calmly as if in a pleasant trance, his blue eyes gazing upward 
 in death, and his lips parted as with a smile; He was laid ten- 
 derly in a soldier's red-stained grave, where he rests in a hero's 
 last slumber. He had given his love to a heartless one, and his 
 affections were blighted. He gave his life to his country, and 
 now wears a patriot's crown. 
 
AN EARLY-DAY TRIP— NO. 1. 
 
 EARLY in our fifteenth year we had succeeded in persuading 
 our paternal parent to permit his prematurely ambitious 
 son to "Go West." After obtaining his consent, we could 
 not "wait a minute," but must be off at once — in the latter part 
 of February. Accordingly, after packing into a capacious car- 
 pet-bag a very plain wardrobe, as well as several very "useful 
 books " — including a Holy Bible, Pilgrims' Progress, etc., — we 
 gripped our weighty sack, bade adieu to parents, and our many 
 brothers and sisters, clambered aboard the old stage coach, and 
 waved a farewell to the old farm, the brook, and the hills and 
 valleys of western Pennsylvania, and started on what to us was a 
 literal "leap in the dark." That was in 1855. Railroads were 
 not then so numerous nor so well regulated as now, and even a 
 railroad trip to the far West was a journey, the thought of which 
 was calculated to cause a shudder to run over full grown ilien, in 
 the rural districts of old eastern communities. They never un- 
 dertook the trip alone, and even when a venturesome trio started 
 off, they were considered regular heroes by all their old neighbors 
 and friends. 
 
 We started away fully resolved to reach the then new and lit- 
 tle heard of country known as "Minnesota Territory;" and, with 
 our tw^enty six dollars — more dollars than we had ever before seen- 
 congregated together — we felt sure we could get to Minnesota 
 Territory, and have money enough left to buy considerable of the 
 Territory, beside: but, as we afterward learned, this was a mis- 
 take. 
 
Sketch ei^ of the Went. 29 
 
 We had never before been out of the county in which we were 
 raised, had never seen a raih-oad, knew no more of the ways of 
 the world than we did of the moon, and didn't know the differ- 
 ence between a city and a water-melon patch, or between a hotel 
 and a haystack, as it were. 
 
 In due time we arrived at the town, thirty miles away, where the 
 railroad was reached, and having arrived a coaple of hovirs in ad- 
 vance of the train, we carried our weighty sack around the 
 streets, or sat upon it near the wonderful railroad- and contem- 
 plated the astonishing character of the iron road, and speculated 
 greatly as to how the cars could " stick onto " such a thing, how 
 they looked, etc. At last, we heard the roar of the approaching 
 train, and as it grew louder and louder, and approached nearer — 
 but was hidden from view by a sharp curve near the depot — our 
 knees began to knock together with fear and excitement, and the 
 bag was so heavy that we could scarcety lift it. In a moment the 
 locomotive came roaring and plunging around the curve into 
 plain sight, and very near, and we felt exceedingly like an orphan 
 without friends, as w^e contemplated for the first time a train of 
 cars: and when the engine came up and blew a terrible blast on 
 the first steam whistle we ever heard, we felt pretty sure the 
 whole thing, including the train, the depot, the railroad the peo- 
 ple, ourself and in all probability the whole world had been ex- 
 ploded, and were going to eternal slam-bang. After running 
 clear around the depot, clinging to our only treasure, however, 
 we saw^ that the people didn't seem to think there was anything 
 particularly wrong, and so we calmed down a little — though we 
 really wished ourself at home, where things were run with less 
 clash and thunder. 
 
 After figuring out where the proper entrance to the car w^as, w^e 
 made a bold push, and soon were ensconsed in a corner-seat, with 
 our grip-sack carefully guarded between our feet; our greatest 
 fear was that some of our books might be stolen, and particularly, 
 that our Bible or Pilgrims' Progress might in some mysterious 
 way, go astray on us: hence, we were either hanging onto our 
 'grip' or else sitting on it, all the time. 
 
 Soon the cars started, and were shooting along at a fearful 
 rate of speed, and we felt sure we must be dashed to pieces: the 
 
30 Sketches of the West. 
 
 trees, fences and all objects flew past as if shot out of a gun, and 
 all we could do at times was to shut our eyes, hold tightly to our 
 treasure, and mentally repeat, " Good Lord, have mercy on us." 
 
 A man soon came along and demanded our money, and we gave 
 it to him; he said it would be five dollars to Mansfield, and that 
 was as far as he could ticket us; he said the train arrived at Mans- 
 field about midnight, and that we could be ticketed from there 
 to Toledo, but would have to stay over at Mansfield until the 
 next evening, when we could go forward. 
 
 At Mansfield the hackmen got hold of us, and it was a fight 
 for life, among them to keep from going crazy, and maintain pos- 
 session of our carpet-bag; after ourself and our bag had been 
 pulled and hauled around among about twenty shouting hotel 
 villains, one burly fellow picked both ourself and our treasure up 
 bodily and chucked us into his hack, locked the door, and drove 
 off. We were now terribly frightened, and fully believed we had 
 been kidnapped and were being driven off to some cave where we 
 would be robbed of our books and clothing, as well as our money, 
 and then murdered. We rehearsed with great rapidity, over and 
 over again, all the prayers we knew, and would gladly have con- 
 tributed liberally for the foreign missions if there had been any- 
 one to pass the hat; we did everything that seemed good, as we 
 were jostled around the dark hack in which w^e were imprisoned. 
 
 After a time, to our great relief the conveoance stopped in front 
 of a well-lighted 'tavern,' and the driver opened the door, and 
 after telling us to give him twenty -five cents, told us that was 
 his tavern and to go in and stay all night. We went in and hesi- 
 tatingly took a seat in a shaded corner on our carpetbag after 
 feeling it over to find out if any of our books had been stolen in 
 the scrimmage, or our treasure had been otherwise damaged. 
 We took a general survey of the place, and felt sure we must 
 have been ushered into a king's palace, so grand did every thing 
 look. Pretty soon a young man, with a beautiful moustache, 
 and gold shirt buttons came to us and asked who and what we 
 were. We frankly told him our whole story, when he laughed 
 heartily, as he remarked: "I guess you have never traveled 
 much, young man? " We told him we had traveled a good deal 
 within the last twentv-four hours: that if we traveled many more 
 
Sketches of the West. 31 
 
 days like we had the last day we should be worn out, or torn to 
 pieces. He paid it would cost us two dollars to stay at the hotel 
 until the Toledo train went out the next evening, and that he 
 would show us our room where we could go to bed. We thought 
 that was a tremendous amount of money for the privilege offered, 
 but not knowing what else to do, we followed him to a room, and 
 went to bed. We did not retire, however, until we had taken an 
 account of stock in our grip-sack, to see that our books and other 
 property were all right, and counted over our money, which we 
 found had shrunken at a fearful rate: but, having no adequate 
 conception of the great distance to be traveled, nor the thousand 
 and one additional demands that would be made upon us, we did 
 not fear but that we had even yet sufficient wealth to get us 
 through to St. Paul. 
 
 Daylight found us out of bed, and after taking a careful invoice 
 of stock again we went down stairs, and the landlord — noticing 
 that we were a clear case of "buckwheat" — kindly proposed 
 that he would take care of our baggage until the train started, 
 and relieve us from its constant care: he promised to put it under 
 lock and key for us, and so we took the chances, and after break- 
 fast started out through the town to see the sights. 
 
 After wandering around for an hour or so, reading the wonder- 
 ful signs, and beholding, with mouth agape, all the wonderful 
 things in the store and shop windows, we came to a place where 
 a man had an immense " whirligig," from the long arms of which 
 were suspended wooden horses, carriage-seats, etc., upon which 
 one could ride, so many times round, for ten cents, and could 
 ride astride of one of the horses or in a carriage-seat, as he chose. 
 A large crowd of idle men and cheering street boys were present, 
 and whenever the owner got his horses and seats full, he would 
 start his machine and away would go the whole twenty cheering, 
 yelling riders, until a hundred rounds had been passed, when the 
 thing would pull up and a fresh load be taken aboard, or the 
 same riders would go again by repeating the ten-cent part of the 
 program. 
 
 Of course, this just beat anything we had ever heard of, and it 
 did not take long to convince us that ten cents would be well 
 invested in a hundred trips around this sweeping swing, and one 
 
32 Sketches of the West. 
 
 of the beautiful wooden horses was ovir choice, by a large ma- 
 jority. 
 
 We climbed onto a dapple-grey horse, paid our dime, and soon 
 all the seats were full and the swing started; we had forgotten 
 that even a ride in a common swing made us deathly sick — much 
 less, one of these flying circular contrivances — and before we re- 
 membered this, and discovered that we were on a machine which 
 was ten-fold more "■sickening" than a common swing, it was 
 going so fast that to jump off would have been death or broken 
 limbs, and we soon discovered to our horror that we were in for 
 what would probably prove a ride of ruin, so far as we were con- 
 cerned. We tried to yell to the proprietor to stop and let us off, 
 but the din and clatter drowned our voice: we swung our hat at 
 him, and motioned vvith our legs, in the most desperate manner, 
 but all to no purpose, and we resigned ourself to our fate, and 
 devoted our fast "failing health" to the task of hanging on to 
 our dapple-grey horse. Very soon the horses, and the whole 
 world was whirling like a buz-wheel, and we could scarcely hold 
 to our wooden horse: pretty soon we leaned forward and hung on 
 with both hands locked about our horse's neck, whilst groans of 
 agony were sent out, as our contribution to the general jubilee, 
 and the whole crowd sent up a howl of delight at the sight of our 
 grief. We have read of the agonies of seasickness, and how 
 landlubbers fairly threw up their boots over the bulwarks, but 
 we beg leave to assert that the worst case of seasickness recorded, 
 either in history or out of it, was a season of perfect bliss com- 
 pared with oar ride on that w^hirligig: such retching and bodily 
 contortions: such awful sensations, as we went round and round, 
 wanting to die and yet clinging to our horse for fear we should 
 fall off and be dashed in pieces. But everything has an ending, 
 and that ten cent ride also ended after what seemed an age of 
 agony, and we rolled off and lay limp as a rag on the ground — our 
 hat gone, our jeans pants ripped, our hair all over our face which 
 had grown, alternately, ashen and blue. We became unconscious, 
 and after an hour we awoke and found ouiseif in a grocery, with 
 a doctor administering mild stimulants with a tea-^poon. After a 
 time the groceryman's boy showed us the way to the hotel, where 
 we weie glad to find that our carpet-bag was safe, and for three 
 
Sketches of the West. .33 
 
 or four hours we lay on the bed, at the end of which time the 
 world ceased whirling around, our nerves became settled, and a 
 cup of tea and a piece of toast kindly sent us by the landlord, 
 put our internal fixtures into a pacified and somewhat improved 
 condition; so that at the hour of departure we were enabled 
 to take full command of our grip-sack once more. The landlord 
 in his generosity, said he guessed we had had a rough enough ex- 
 perience in Mansfield, and did not charge us anything for our 
 stay. From that day to this we cannot think of one of those 
 machines without feeling sick at the stomach, and to see one in 
 motion actually throws us into a spasm, to this day. 
 
 After stammering out our thanks to the kind host, we found 
 the depot after a deal of inquiry along the streets, found the 
 place to buy a ticket to Toledo, and got aboard the right car, 
 after boarding two or three wrong ones, and came near being run 
 over by a switch-engine. After getting ourself and our baggage 
 safely stowed away in a corner, we looked over our money, and 
 found we had fourteen dollars and sixty cents of a balance on 
 hand; but, thinking Toledo couldn't be very far from St. Paul, 
 we consoled ourself, and during the night that followed we curled 
 down on toj) of our "grip," and wore away the weary night by 
 snoozing and dreaming of riding on that whirligig, and morning- 
 found us shrunken in frame, troubled in spirit and haggard in 
 appearance. 
 
 We an-ived in Toledo in a cold, ch-izzling rain, and succeeded 
 in escaping the hackmen, with our property, after having been 
 nearly pulled in two, and started up through the dreary, muddy 
 town, looking cautiously along for some one with a benevolent 
 face of whom we could inquire when and where we could start 
 for Chicago. Our load seemed very heavy, and it was with diffi- 
 culty we could carry it. Finally an old peanut man showed us 
 the steam-ferry upon which we should have to cross the harbor 
 to the Chicago depot. By watching the big folks after crossing 
 the harbor on the boat, and by a good deal of inquiry, we finally 
 found ourself aboard the Chicago-bound train, with but five 
 dollars and thirty-five cents left. So intense had been our con- 
 cern, that it was not until noon that we remembered not having 
 anything to eat, except the toast and tea, since the morning pre- 
 
34 Sketches of the West. 
 
 vious; and at Michigan City we went into a coffee-house near the 
 depot and ate twenty cents w^orth of bread and coffee, and bought 
 five cents' worth of peanuts. 
 
 Near midnight we landed in Chicago, amid a howling mob of 
 hotel -runners, rain, mud and snow, with no more idea where we 
 were — aside from the name — than if dropped into another world. 
 By an inquiry we had made on the cars, we learned the fare frgm 
 Chicago to Galena was just five dollars — Galena was the most 
 northerly p^int on the Mississippi River then attainable by rail- 
 road. 
 
 After asking many questions, and receiving many a heartless 
 rebuff, and derisive reply, we finally, by almost superhuman exer- 
 tion, in packing our load, found a hotel, nearly a mile from the 
 depot, where we timidly entered, and seated ourself on our 
 carpet-sack in the shade of one of the great pillars in the pala- 
 tial office of the large, brilliant iiotel — one of the best and largest 
 in the city. We were exceedingly weary, and by this time had 
 fully concluded that our money must run out long ere reaching 
 our destination, and this fact began to weigh heavily upon our 
 spirits; we w^ere not only ashamed to beg, but were afraid to let 
 our destitute condition be known — imagining that our plight was 
 the first and only similar misfortune that had ever befallen any 
 one; we shrank from the thought of making it known, and fully 
 determined to go until the last penny was expended, and then 
 trust to Providence for the balance. 
 
 It was not long after entering the hotel before all the guests 
 had retired, and we were discovered by the man on duty in the 
 place, who approached us and in a gruff voice demanded: 
 
 "Here you young rooster, what are you doing here — you'd 
 better carry yourself out of here in less'in a flyin' minute! " 
 
 We seized our satchel, and with a terrible sense of guilt, or 
 something of a similar feeling, we made for the doorway as fast 
 as possible: but, turning and giving the man a frightened look, 
 he seemed to relent, and in a milder tone called out: 
 
 " I say, boy, hold on a minute." We stopped on the threshold, 
 when he continued: "Come back here and tell me w^hat you 
 are doing around here, anyway." 
 
 We hesitatingly sank into a chair near where he was standing, 
 
Sketches of the West. .35 
 
 and in answer to his questions told him who we were, and whither 
 we were bound. Apparently being- convinced of our honesty, he 
 said we could occupy a chair until morning, and told us when 
 the Galena train started out — at eight o'clock — and gave us 
 a general idea of the direction of the depot, though he said it was 
 nearly two miles distant. Thanking him for his kindness, we 
 "■ snuggled down '" into the big chair, with our sack on our knees, 
 and enjoyed an uneasy kind of sleep until daylight, when we 
 shouldered our more weighty than valuable property and started 
 out to find the depot. 
 
 By dint of great labor, we found it barely in time, and our gen- 
 eral appearance was much the same as when we got through 
 with our ride at Mansfield. In our rambles in search of the 
 Galena depot we had passed through the hands of a couple of 
 burly newsboys, who seemed to feel it their religious duty to give 
 us a complete walloping; our concern was not so great for our- 
 self as for our glazed carpet-sack, which we had saved only by 
 great bravery induced by desperation; the poor grip-sack was 
 worse used up than ourself when we reached the depot, having 
 one side kicked in, our precious books badly jammed, and one of 
 the handles of the sack torn off. At the depot we paid all our 
 money for a ticket to Galena excepting ten cents, and left Chic- 
 ago with many a heart-ache as to what was liable to happen next, 
 for our special edification, with a dozen sore spots contributed by 
 the newsboys, and a very poor idea of Chicago hospitality in gen- 
 eral. During the day we got out our needle and thread and, so 
 far as possible, made a-meiich in our wardrobe and reconstructed 
 our poor dilapidated baggage. 
 
 We had nearly all day to reflect upon how we were " getting on 
 in the world," and finally convinced ourself that during the 
 three days we had been "a traveler in strange lands," we 
 had learned more than in all the rest of our life — in fact we 
 felt that we had. We also learned by overhearing others talk, 
 that the upper Mississippi River was yet closed by ice, and would 
 be for several weeks to come: that Galena was a miserable town 
 in which to remain until navigation opened: that Dubuque was 
 a much finer city in which to sojourn, but that the only way just 
 at that season, to get from Galena to Dubuque was to traverse a 
 
36 Sketches of the West. 
 
 wild region of country a distance of eighteen miles, to Dunleith, 
 and there cross the river to Dubuque on the Iowa side, on the 
 steam ferry, which would cost ten cents. We had just that 
 amount of money left, but how were we ever to reach Dunleith? 
 Already two days with scarcely anything to eat, and another day 
 and night lying between, with our sacred property, weighing 
 some twenty-five pounds, and with which we would no sooner 
 think of parting than of losing our right hand — especially with 
 our " good books." And, right here, we propose to relate one of 
 the most noteworthy cases of physical endurance we ever heard 
 of, before or since. 
 
 We can scarcely, even to this day, explain what it was that 
 kept us from at least asking for something to eat: but, we had, 
 in our "greenhorn " innocence, become impressed with the idea 
 that all humanity had turned enemies to us: retiring and modest 
 at that age — since outgrown, however — to the greatest possible 
 degree, and withal posessed with a self -pride and a self-respect 
 which formed an insurmountable barrier to our begging, even 
 had we not considered it positively dangerous to ask for anything 
 without paying all that was required: and of course, our early 
 training had been of the kind that taught us that it w^as far bet- 
 ter to die than to take even the most trifling thing without the 
 knowledge of its owner. Thup, amid a most terrible condition of 
 the roads and the worst possible winter weather, we arrived at 
 Galena some time after dark of a black and terribly stormy night, 
 and, by following in the wake of the crowd — for more than a 
 mile, from the end of the unfinished railroad into the town — 
 through mud and snow knee deep, we at last found ourself in the 
 office of the principal hotel in the place, completely wet, bedaubed 
 in mud, and weary and faint in the extreme. 
 
 Here we met with some, to us, decidedly new features in our 
 eventful journey. The hotel was literally jammed full of travel- 
 ers, adventurers, and all sorts of men, and among the rest twenty 
 Winnebago Indian chiefs, who had reached there the day before 
 on their retui-n from Washington, whither they had been on a 
 tr 'aty tour. We had never seen an Indian before, and when we 
 suddenly found ouvself in the midst of a great crowd of these 
 stalwart, painted, feather-bedecked and blanketed warriors, with 
 
Sketches of the West. 37 
 
 knives, tomahawks and war-clubs lashed to them, we certainly 
 felt that life with us was to be only a brief season of human and 
 scalped misery. But, although in continual fear of them all of 
 that, to us, most dreadful night — for we were thoroughly read up 
 in Indian massacres and other atrocities — we jBnally concluded 
 that by keeping in a shady corner, and conducting ourself with 
 the greatest possible decorum, we might be spared, for we noticed 
 that the white guests were very familiar with them, and the 
 Indians seemed to be in a pleasant mood. 
 
 Supper-time came, and the guests were summoned by a fellow 
 beating frantically on a terrible gong: we had never before heard 
 one of these tumultuous carnage-dispensers, and it just about 
 frightened what little life we yet possessed, clear out of us. Of 
 course^ we were only too glad to be allowed to remain inside, 
 without daring to even look into the room where the steaming 
 viands sent out their luscious odors, to only aggravate our starv- 
 ing sensations. 
 
 It was late when all the guests had retired, and the savages 
 spread their blankets about on the office floor, all around us, and 
 alternately slept, talked in their singular tongue, or smoked their 
 pipes, until the room was filled with smoke. There we sat, 
 finally, all alone with these armed red skins, afraid to even move, 
 and watching their every movement through all that weary and 
 painful night. 
 
 Morning eventually arrived, after a seeming age, and such a 
 morning! It had snowed nearly a foot, on top of the almost 
 bottomless mud, and was dark and murky overhead. Breakfast 
 was announced, the guests all responded gayly to the call of the 
 gong, after having their morning dram at the bar, and we almost, 
 at one time, made up our mind to ask the clerk for something to 
 eat: but our heart failed us and we did not do it. We could see 
 that the town was a repulsive looking place, and as we had heard 
 a dozen or more of the men agree to undertake the trip through 
 to Dubuque on foot, despite the horrible condition of the roads, 
 we resolved to follow in their wake, though we had also heard 
 them describe the route as lying through a barren, wild and deso- 
 late country. 
 
 After breakfast they fixed themselves completely for the trip; 
 
38 Sketches of the West. \ 
 
 long boots, unincumbered by luggage to speak of, they filled 
 their flasks with stimulants, their cases with cigars, and finally 
 all started in high spirits through the mud and snow^, with the 
 writer at a respectful distance in the rear, with our carpet-bag 
 an a short stick across our shoulder. 
 
 We had no more than entered the barrens in rear of the town 
 when we began to realize that our undertaking was a most des- 
 perate one, with such a load, and in our condition, but still some- 
 thing seemed to impel us forward through the mud and snow, 
 nearly knee deep. We seemed to feel that if we could only reach 
 Dubuque, it would be vastly better, because it would be just fo 
 much further on our journey, and could not but prove a more 
 desirable place than Galena in which to seek employment. 
 
 For a distance of three or four miles we kept close to the well- 
 fed travelers, though none of them deigned to notice us, save to 
 occasionally turn about and, with a laugh, yell out, " Hurry up, 
 Bub, or the wolves will make a dinner of you, sure! " and " jolly 
 remarks " of a similar character. After a time we began to fall 
 to the rear, and finally in spite of our efforts to keep up, they 
 passed out of sight entirely. We shall not attempt to fully por- 
 tray our experiences during the remainder of that day, for Fuch 
 experiences are beyond the power of pen or pencil. With nothing 
 to eat for nearly three days, save the little lunch two days previ- 
 ously, we now found ourself in the midst of a wilderness, alone, 
 starving, and weighed down with a load too great for even a 
 strong man to carry over such roads. After traveling until 
 nearly noon, as we imagined, we fell exhausted in the snow, and 
 lay almost unconscious for a time, when we aroused again, and 
 struggled on, with only a desperate resolution as our last support. 
 We knew, every time we fell, which grew more and more frequent 
 as the day wore on, that if we lay until our joints became stiff- 
 ened and set — and they seemed, finally, to be growing solidly to- 
 gether — that we should perish through sheer helplessness, or 
 speedily be devoured by the wolves which were abundant then in 
 that wild region. So, v/ith all the horrors of our situation pic- 
 tured before our eyes, we would scarcely more than fall to the 
 ground ere we would begin the struggle to get up again. Our 
 feelings can neither be conceived or described: and our ghastly 
 
Sketches of the West. 39 
 
 and crazed appearance must have corresponded well with our 
 awful physical sensations. 
 
 We must have been a picture of insane distress when, just be- 
 fore dark, we reached the wharf at Dunleith, and staggered 
 aboard the steam ferry, that was just pulling out for her last trip 
 across the great river for the day. In a moment after starting, 
 and as we stood leaning against the rail, the collector came around 
 and we gave him our last dime, and then staggered along into 
 the low cabin, dropped our sack on the floor, fell prone upon a 
 long bench, and all consciousness was suddenly blotted out. 
 
 Up to this time our trip had certainly been an eventful one, 
 and one in which human endurance had been tested to the quick. 
 But fourteen years of age, and small for our age: tw^o days and a 
 half and two nights without even a morsel of food of any kind, 
 and scarcely any sleep, and on the last day made a march with a 
 load, and through a country, and over a road that would have 
 been very trying to even a strong and well-fed man. We have 
 always considered that trip a thorough proportionate test of what 
 a human being can endure, under the most desperate circum- 
 stances, and still remain on the earthly side of the dark valley. 
 
 When we first realized wfiere we were, after passing into un- 
 consciousness on the steamer, we found we had been carried to 
 the City Hotel, in Dubuque, by direction of some kind-hearted 
 gentleman who saw us fall. Lying on a sofa in a beautifully-fur- 
 nished apartment, with a waiter and physician seated near us, 
 apparently watching with deep interest the result of the trial, the 
 particulars of which they as yet knew nothing. The first thing 
 we remember to have spoken was an inquiry concerning our 
 precious grip-sack, and the waiter assured us it was safe in the 
 office of the hotel — oh, that precious property! It was near 
 morning, and the doctor, after seeing us safely revived, left med- 
 icine to be given us, and said he would call again during the day. 
 We could not move even a muscle, much less a limb, and it was 
 almost a week before we could walk about — in the meantime hav- 
 ing suffered greatly. 
 
 The landlord — whose name we have forgotten — had inquired 
 into our history, and assured us that we should be taken care of 
 until the upper river opened, and then he would see that some 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 40 Sketches of the West. 
 
 way was provided for our reaching St. Paul: and when we were 
 able, he said he had some light duties about the hotel which we 
 could do for him. It is needless to say that as soon as possible, 
 we proved a faithful servant to our kind and generous benefactor. 
 
 After two or three weeks we again took sick, and for some time 
 the balance between life and death quivered dubiously; our wiry 
 constitution, however, finally triumphed, and we again became 
 convalescent. This was the spring when the cholera broke out 
 all along the river with such terrible fatality, and every steamer 
 that came from below was loaded with death in its most horrible 
 form. 
 
 The landlord finally told us one morning that if we were bent 
 upon going through to St. Paul, the steamboat "Hamburg" would 
 be in some time during the day and her old master. Captain 
 Estes, being a warm personal friend of his, he would introduce 
 us to him, and request him to set us down in St. Paul as safe and 
 sound as circumstances would permit, which he felt sure he 
 would do. 
 
 Accordingly, when the Hamburg arrived our noble friend 
 consigned us and our grip-sack to the care of Captain Estes and, 
 with real feeling, asked him to look after our welfare, which the 
 bluff, kind-hearted old skipper most heartily promised to do — 
 the grand old steamer Hamburg " sleeps '* at this day at the bot- 
 tom of Lake Pepin, near the Minnesota shore, and not far above 
 the legendary and famous Maiden's Leap: where the bones of old 
 Captain Estes now rest we know not, but we heartily pray that 
 " he sleeps well," wherever may be his tomb. 
 
 Though other steamers which had come from below were 
 freighted with death, the Hamburg could certainly claim the 
 palm in that matter, and our slow trip up the river was a \eri- 
 table journey of death. At every landing, a greater or less 
 number of dead were put ashore from among the four or five 
 hundred passengers, and at every woodpile corpses were hastily 
 interred in shallow and unmarked graves by the deck-hands. At 
 the then young town of La Crosse, we painfully remember, there 
 were seven brothers and sisters laid side by side, on the wharf, 
 with their dead mother, and when the boat pulled away we beheld 
 — the last object we saw beneath the weird light of the boat's 
 
Sketches of the Went. 41 
 
 flickering torches — the frantic father and husband, the only sur 
 vivor, wailing over his " loved ones gone," through the horrors of 
 cholera, to another land from the one they had started for, with 
 such hopes and promise for the future. 
 
 Captain Estes was indeed very, very kind; his solicitude for our 
 safety and care was all that the fondest father could have be- 
 stowed, and although we drifted speedily into the first stages of 
 the dreadful disease that was constantly claiming new victims by 
 the score, he, with his great experience, doctored us and watched 
 our condition so closely, that he battled away the disease, so that 
 when we reached St. Paul, though but a respectable skeleton, we 
 had safely passed the point of danger, and afterward regained our 
 wonted health and vigor, through the influence of the grand and 
 salubrious climate of Minnesota. 
 
 Jfe 
 
AN EARLY-DAY TRIP— NO. 2. 
 
 AFTER spending a year and a half among the Indians and 
 early-day flatboatmen of the Minnesota River Valley — also 
 called in those days, St. Peter River — our conscience 
 began to prick us, because we had left the hearthstone of our 
 parents at so young an age, and felt that we had only remained 
 at home until we had barely ceased to be a charge, and ought to 
 have remained a few years longer and endeavored to work out a 
 "bill for our early keeping," that in the light of reason, as we 
 began to view it, stood recorded against us. We felt, in fact, as 
 though we had not acted fairly by our kind parents, who had 
 devoted the best days of their lives to our care and training, and 
 we resolved to lose no time in returning to the humble homestead 
 of our father and tender him our services. We probably would 
 never have thought of this sin of omission of which we stood self - 
 charged, but for the fact that we had grown extremely home- 
 sick, and longed for the familiar scenes of our childhood. This 
 fact, we have no doubt, had a big influence in bringing us to a 
 sense of duty, and quickening within us the spark of filial effec- 
 tion. 
 
 During the year and a half spent in the wilds of Minnesota, we 
 had learned but little of the ways of the world, save what could 
 be gleaned in the cook-house of a Minnesota River flatboat, whilst 
 serving up pork, beans, tea, and gray-colored biscuit for a crew 
 of Frenchmen, who talked all the time night and day, but who 
 never spoke English excepting when they desired us to under- 
 stand that it was time for us to draw a bucketful of whiskey 
 from a barrel of the Government supplies — in those days most of 
 
Sketches of the West. 43 
 
 the freight boated up the river consisted of government goods for 
 the frontier military posts and Indian agencies — and turn in a 
 bucketful of river water to make whole the contents of the barrel. 
 Still, being of a somewhat observing turn of mind, we learned 
 some things, while others were forced upon our mind, regardless 
 of any natural disposition on our part to gather in "points." 
 We learned all about how flatboating was done on a difficult 
 river in a new and untamed and unsettled country, particularly 
 the mysteries of furnishing the most wretched victuals from the 
 raw material — the position of chief caterer being the only degree 
 in the art of flatboating that our years or muscle would at 
 that time permit us to become a recognized master in . It was 
 a most charming spectacle to see the magnificent soups we dished 
 up for the French crew, by boiling a ten pound chunk of fat salt- 
 pork all afternoon in a sheet-iron kettle, and served up in tin 
 dishes. There would be about three or four inches of clear 
 grease to be eaten off before they reached the pure brine below. 
 But they always complimented our pork-soup, or bouillon, as 
 being extremely fine; aside from the oil, it would be so salty that 
 a single mouthful of it would have turned the stomach of Lot's 
 wife inside out, even though she had become solid on the salt 
 question. But we cannot now go into the details of a flatboat- 
 man's life on frontier waters, because it would require the latitude 
 of a small, volume to do justice to the life and experiences of a 
 jolly fiatboatman in those early days, on the murky bosom of the 
 mosquito-bound and Indian-hampered shores of the Minnesota 
 River. 
 
 Late in the autumn of 1856, found us a passenger on a down- 
 river steamer, with a wardrobe which w^as a cross between that 
 worn by a river-rat, and an average Indian boy, with a hollow- 
 sided grip-sack — our precious books had some time before suc- 
 cumbed to various influences, including wind and weather — with 
 some seventy or eighty dollars in our breeches pocket, as the net 
 proceeds of eighteen months on the ragged edge of civilization. 
 
 As the Christmas snow was falling in great soft flakes, only to 
 melt on the wet and muddy earth, a lone juvenile might have 
 been seen, in the uncertain light of late evening, approching his 
 childhood's humble home, guided by familiar spots, toward the 
 
44 Sketches of the Went. 
 
 cheerful light that glowed from the window out upon the beauti- 
 ful night scene. This home was the paternal headquarters so 
 much longed for, and we the juvenile prodigal returned from dis- 
 tant wanderings in a strange country. Our unlocked for entrance 
 to the family circle, created a convulsion of all the family ele- 
 ments, which jarred the hearthstone from center to circumfer- 
 ence. 
 
 The following morning we "explained our position," and tried 
 to make our parents understand how much we had suffered in 
 mind at having left them at so premature an age, and without even 
 offering our services on the farm, for six years or during our mi- 
 nority; but they did not seem to realize that they had sustained 
 any very serious loss: or if they had, the loss, either past or pros- 
 pectively, had not broken in upon their minds with any very 
 great shock, as yet. The old gentleman suggested that we attend 
 school during the winter, at the log school-house in the hollow, 
 and in the spring we should be at liberty to continue our observa- 
 tions on the borders of the Far West, so far as he was concerned. 
 But, indeed, by the time spring had arrived, we needed no admon- 
 ition to again set our face toward the Land of the Dakotahs. If 
 our longing to return home was severe, our anguish to get started 
 West again was infinitely more severe, and all we learned that 
 winter at the log school-house was to forget a good deal of what 
 we knew before — as we stared vacantly, our eyes on the enchant- 
 ing pages of a Cobb's spelling-book, and our mind away in the 
 great, free Northwest, amid the fascinating scenes of the wild life 
 with which we had been surrounded in the time of our absence. 
 
 Springtime came at last, and, accompanied by a great stalwart 
 production of those rural haunts, much older than ourself, named 
 
 Jake S , we again, and for the last time, turned our back 
 
 upon the rocky glens and mossy hillsides of our native hether. 
 
 Of course we claimed, and Jake cheerfully conceded us, the 
 honor of being " master of ceremonies " in the travels that lay 
 before us, and we resolved on this trip, to travel wholly by river, 
 taking passage at Pittsburgh. By this time we flattered ourself 
 that we knew a thing or two about travel, and the ways of the 
 earth, although it was not many moons later that we found there 
 were at least a few things we had not before discovered. 
 
Sketches of the West. 45 
 
 Jake was emphatically verdant in all things, and was just at 
 that age when he was neither attractive nor convincing in his 
 presence, and even when addressed, he could not possibly drawl 
 out the simplest answer until his questioner had " long since " 
 forgotten what it was he asked him. In short, both in appear- 
 ance and manner, Jake was one of the worst specimens of turnip- 
 sheller that ever emigrated from the Allegheny spurs. 
 
 Arriving at Pittsburgh in due time, we found a steamboat 
 bound for St. Louis, and thereon we took passage, and were as- 
 signed to a stateroom located immediately forward of the larboard 
 wheel. She was a large boat, and had in tow two immense 
 barges loaded with railroad iron. She left port, too, crowded 
 with passengers, mostly families and young men seeking homes 
 and fortunes in the far west — most of them bound for Kansas. 
 There were so many people on board, that the cabin, as well as 
 the lower deck, was crowded uncomfortably, and, with her heavy 
 tow of barges the boat made the passage down the Ohio and up 
 the Mississippi to St. Louis a very slow and tedious one. 
 
 After buying our tickets, Jake and ourself had fifty dollars, 
 between us, with which to pay our way from St. Louis to St. 
 Paul. We had scarcely gotten out of sight of Pittsburgh ere one 
 of the passengers fell overboard — literally crowded off the lower 
 deck — and was drowned before he could be reached by the small 
 boats; and, during the whole trip there were seven of the pas- 
 sengers dropped into the river, at different points, and lost. All 
 this, with the prevalence of a good deal of sickness, resulting in 
 several deaths, among the emigrants, made the "voyage" of 
 about ten days to St. Louis one to be remembered, aside from the 
 many other accidents that transpired, which were calculated to 
 harrow up the souls, and try the bravery of two such precious 
 greenhorns as Jake and ourself — particularly Jake. 
 
 Immediately after leaving Pittsburgh our traveling companion 
 began to show signs of distress, and took to his bed largely. It 
 only required a day or two to prove the cause of his indisposition. 
 He had been taken down with the mumps! and he had, too, the 
 " most complete set " of mumps we ever beheld. His face was 
 naturally short and round, covered over with a straggling 
 " stumpy " beard, and in a couple of days his face was about two 
 
46 Sketches of the West 
 
 feet, horizontally, with a perpendicular elevation of about six 
 inches. When Jake's jaws began to "spread," he felt better, 
 somewhat, and spent some time out of his room — which, by the 
 way, was a most uncomfortable place even for a well person. It 
 was close, and the infernal carnage of the great wheel made one's 
 hair stand ; and it seemed as though we were liable to be cru shed 
 by it every moment; it was, no doubt, a room that had been re- 
 spectfully dictated to the use of " greenhorns " ever since the day 
 when the old hulk was launched, because no other class would, 
 for a moment, consent to pay as much as those who occupied the 
 finest quarters, and then try to live in such a cavernous bedlam 
 as ;that narrow niche, directly against the damp and roaring 
 wheel. 
 
 Jake's mumps grew to such immense proportions, that he 
 could scarcely pass through the narrow door of his room, with- 
 out turning his " complaint " edgewise; and, when he first made 
 his entree among the passengers in the cabin, there was a com- 
 motion probably never equaled since the " confusion of tongues " 
 at the building of the Tower of Babel. We cannot describe the 
 utter grotesqueness of Jake's appearance; the swelling, aside 
 from making his face, from right to left, a perfect terror to look 
 upon, had extended all over his face, nearly closing his eyes, and 
 turning his nose almost the " other end up," beside drawing his 
 mouth until it seemed to reach nearly from one ear to the other; 
 imagine, then, an extremely short neck, and you may be able to 
 get a very faint idea of poor Jake's general appearance when he 
 wore mumps. 
 
 The boyish pride of the writer was being perpetually wounded , 
 because Jake could not think of being separated from us for 
 scarcely a moment; and when Jake and ourself would enter the 
 cabin, we became the center of universal attraction — though it 
 was simply the eyes of all, that were attracted, whilst the general 
 anatomy of the average passenger would fiy from our approach 
 as though we carried a small-pox hospital in every pocket. Un- 
 feeling persons would laugh immoderately at Jake's appearance, 
 and pass all sorts of remarks, even going so far as to suggest that 
 it would be a mercy to drown him; and they would also inquire 
 of the writer, in all apparent sincerity, if we were engaged in col- 
 
Sketches of the West. 47 
 
 lecting curiopities for Barnum. As often as the weather and cir- 
 cumstances would permit, we w^ould bundle Jake up and get him 
 on the upper deck, where, with the hot smokestacks on one side 
 of him, and the blazing sun on the other, endeavor to thaw out 
 his mumps and reduce the swelling. We are not positive as to 
 w^hether our original remedy proved effecacious or not; but cer- 
 tain it was that he improved under our treatment rapidly, and by 
 the time Cincinnati was reached we had gotten Jake's face pretty 
 w^ell shrunk up again. We had never enjoyed a run of mumps 
 ourself, and although w^e expected to become a victim, we did 
 not, nor have we ever had them since. But, ere we left the boat 
 at St. Louis, Jake and ourself had the supreme satisfaction of 
 noticing that from forty to fifty of our fellow-passengers, w^ho had 
 been our tormentors on the trip, were beginning to grow finely, 
 around the jaws, and the sight of the pickles on- the tables would 
 set them all to groaning, and to heaping imprecations loud and 
 deep upon the head of the " original baboon " who gave them the 
 pains they were just beginning to enjoy. 
 
 The boat remained at Cincinnati all day, and Jake and ourself 
 concluded to look the town over a little, and so started out. After 
 w^alking up and down several of the principal streets — the writer, 
 meantime, keeping in sight some general landmarks, that we 
 might not lose our bearings — we took a notion to treat ourselves 
 to a card of ginger-bread, some peanuts and an orange — the lat- 
 ter, neither one of us had ever tasted. But the smallest money 
 we had, being a ten-dollar note, we determined to drop into the 
 first bank w^e came to and have it exchanged for small bills. In 
 a few minutes we came to a bank, and whilst Jake stood leaning 
 up against the door-case, curiously gazing about the elegant 
 apartment — Jake had never seen a bank before, save a sand-bank 
 or a coal-bank — the writer put on an extreme business air, ap- 
 proached the cashier's counter, threw down our ten-dollar note, 
 and asked him to give us some small bills for it. He took up the 
 note, glanced his eye over it, held it up to the light, and then 
 laid it down on the counter. He gave us a look that nearly froze 
 our blood; then he looked at Jake, and that seemed to settle it. 
 He took down a little whistle from behind his desk, sprang over 
 he counter to the door, and blew it vigorouslv as he remarked, 
 
48 Sketches of the West. 
 
 " I guess this will prove a clue to some of this trouble; and in less 
 than a minute, in rushed two men dressed in blue uniforms, with 
 clubs in their belts and had both of us by the coat-collars in a 
 
 jiffy. 
 
 "Now, officers," said the banker, "take these two y^ung scoun- 
 drels to the lock-up, and as the court is now open, and I have the 
 proof of their character here in my hand, I will be up in half an 
 hour and have them examined before dinner." 
 
 So saying, the officers tightened their grip and literally 
 "snatched" us out to the sidewalk, and started up the street 
 with two as sorry-looking and terrorized young "buckwheats" 
 as probably were ever seen in any city or country. The whole 
 proceeding was so short and positive, and burst upon us so sud- 
 denly, that our tongues were tied by the apparent horror of our 
 situation, and for a time both of^us were utterly speechless. At 
 last Jake, who was ahead, exploded; and, amid a flood of tears, 
 he made out to screw his head around far enough to catch a 
 glimpse of our own staring eyes and gaping mouth and remark: 
 
 "Boo-hoo-oo! — aw-aw! Oh, bwa-haw-oo-oo! Oh, what's the 
 — baw-hoo-wah! — matter with us now? — wah-baw-hoo!" 
 
 About that time the officer gave him a twitch that not only cut 
 off further communication, but lifted his heels up about as high 
 as where his mumps were usually located. Taking Jake's rear 
 elevation, as he was marched along up the street, as a starting 
 point from which to judge character, and he really did look like 
 a " hard ticket." The officer had a whole handful of his thin 
 and somewhat slouchy checked coat gathered up into a hand- 
 hold, together with his shirt and "galuses," and when he 
 yanked Jake around to stop his blubbering, it seemed to draw his 
 coat-tail and shirt up toward his collar, and the strain upon his 
 yarn suspenders drew his pant-legs clear above his boots. As for 
 ourself , we were no less frightened than our agonized companion ; 
 but had we been on our way to the gallows, we could not have 
 suppressed, inward laugh, at the utterly ludicrous sight Jake 
 presented as he passed along on his way to the police station. 
 
 Reaching the station, the officers put us into a small room, that 
 seemed to be the wood-room of the establishment, and after 
 searching us for "tools" or weapons, they went out, locking the 
 
Sketches of the West. i9 
 
 door after them. We never ean forget the hour we spent in that 
 room, consulting upon the situation. The writer believed the 
 cause of our trouble was that the bill we gave to the banker was 
 a counterfeit, and we had been arrested as counterfeiters, or 
 something of that sort. But Jake was sure that could not be the 
 cause of such a terrible state of off airs, atid as the tears 
 coursed down over his yet "healthy-looking" cheeks, and he, 
 anon, wiped off the surplus "brine" with his sleeve, he felt dead 
 certain that we were going to be hung or banished, or sent to the 
 state prison for life, and starved to death on bread and water. 
 While we ourself were also in a delightful state of uncertainty as 
 to the fate that awaited us, yet we tried to cheer Jake up as much 
 as we could. To add to our misery, we feared that we would not 
 be given an opportunity to establish our innocence until the boat 
 would go off and leave us, which would prove a ruin next to be- 
 ing executed or sent to the penitentiary. 
 
 At the end of an hour, or less, one of the officers came in and 
 told us to follow him. Our limbs grew so weak with excitement 
 and fear, that it was with the greatest difficulty we could ascend 
 the stairs that led to the apartment of justice. Jake's knees 
 fairly smote each other as we came in before the justice, where 
 were assembled a motley group, only differing in the various 
 kinds of "tough nuts" that seemed to fill the place. The 
 banker was inside the bar, and a group of legal men were engaged 
 in writing out documents. Jake and ourself were given seats in- 
 side the railing, and the judge asked the banker what charges he 
 had to present against the two prisoners. At the word "prison- 
 ers," Jake looked up at his illustrious partner in crime — the boss 
 traveler — and such a look! It was a look of despair which no 
 brush could have transferred to canvas, or mortal words express. 
 As for ourself, we felt that no drop of blood coursed its way in 
 our veins, although as the crisis came, we felt the calm of des- 
 peration coming over us, for we knew that if we were ever to get 
 out of that trouble, ive should certainly have to accomplish it, as 
 we could plainly see that Jake was completely dumbfounded. 
 
 The banker arose, holding the fatal bank-note in his hand, and 
 informed the judge of the circumstances by which it came into 
 his possession. He said it was an "altered bill," or "raised bill," 
 
50 Sketches of the West. 
 
 which meant that it was origininally a o«e-dollarbill. That there 
 was a gang of men, somewhere, who were flooding the country 
 with this altered or raised money, and that the bankers and busi- 
 ness men of Cincinnati had been severely swindled by this money, 
 some of which was most cleverly executed. He added that the 
 bankers had resolved to ferret out this gang of swindlers, if pos- 
 sible, and bring them to justice; that he felt sure these two young 
 sprigs might be made to divulge something that would further 
 the ends of justice in this matter: at any rate he considered the 
 manner and circumstances of the tender of this money at his bank 
 sufficiently suspicious to warrant him in causing their arrest — 
 pointing to Jake and ourself — for they were just such verdant ap- 
 pearing, uncouth chaps as these who would be used as feelers for 
 the main gang. 
 
 After he concluded his remarks, the judge, turning to the 
 writer, said: "Well, young man, what have you to offer in de- 
 fense of your act in presenting such money as this at the bank?" 
 
 We staggered to our feet, holding to the railing, lest our knee- 
 joints should fail entirely — for a court of justice was certainly 
 new to us in its surroundings and affairs, and had it not been a 
 most desperate case we should never have been able to offer any 
 defense at all. But, being couscious of our own innocence, when 
 we arose to speak a feeling of indignation came to 6ur assistance, 
 and we began at the first of our trip and related a straightfor- 
 ward history of who we were, where we were going, where we re- 
 ceived the money and all about it — even to the misfortune of our 
 friend Jake in being taken down with the mumps, which fact we 
 offered in extenuation of his present not overly honest-looking 
 face — there being yet an undue proportion of "cheek" in his 
 general make-up. The money, we had received from a country 
 schoolmaster, before leaving home. After hearing our story, the 
 judge turned to an officer and said: 
 
 " Take this note, officer, and accompany these two lads to the 
 boat, at the levee, upon which they claim to be passengers, and 
 if you find their statements true in that particular, and there are 
 no new suspicions forced upon your mind, return the bill to them 
 and let them go on their way rejoicing." 
 
 At this, we both followed the officer, our hearts several tons 
 
Sketches of the West. ol 
 
 lighter than when we entered the building, and soon arrived at 
 the boat, w^here preparations were being made to continue the 
 journey. The officer went with us to the clerk of the boat, who 
 certified to our character as passengers — particularly to Jake as 
 being a well known passenger on the boat — when the officer gave 
 us our "raised bill" and went on shore. The lines were hauled 
 in and we were soon afloat once more. In an interview on the 
 upper deck, shortly after, Jake and ourself voted unanimous- 
 ly in favor of a proposition to the effect that we had learned sev- 
 eral entirely new things that day, and that we had seen all of 
 Cincinnati that we cared to — at least until sometime when we 
 didn't have so much spurious currency about us as we seemed to 
 have that day. 
 
 .No troubles overtook us, worthy of mention, before reaching 
 St. Louis, after the slice of education we had enjoyed at Cincin- 
 nati. An incident, however, occured not far from Cairo, which, 
 while it lasted, was somewhat exciting. It was somewhere near 
 the middle of the night, and all of the several hundred pas- 
 sengers on board were soundly sleeping — or nearly all. The rooms, 
 of course, were all full, and in addition, the cabin floor from one 
 end to the other, was covered with cots or "shake-downs" to 
 accommodate the passengers who were not fortunate enough to 
 secure staterooms. During the night, if one found it necessary to 
 pass through the cabin, great caution had to be used in making a 
 way among the slumberers strewn about. 
 
 Suddenly, as if the boat had crashed into a perpendicular ledge 
 of rocks, came a crashing and smashing; a snaping of timbers: a 
 rolling and pitching; and in less time than it takes to relate it the 
 terrified passengers came screaming and tumbling out of their 
 rooms, in dishabille, — men, women and children. Many from the 
 upper bunks came, like leaping frogs, through the transoms, 
 landing in the utter mob in the cabin, heels-over-head: while 
 more than one muscular two-hundred-pounder never stopped to 
 unlock his door, but came crashing through the thin bulkheads, 
 carrying all before them, and adding kindling wood to the general 
 mix-up: the boat rolled and groaned from stem to stern. The 
 writer had the good fortune to be so stupified with terror, that we 
 simply gained the transom and had crawled about half way 
 
52 Sketches of the West. 
 
 through, when we could only hang over the cross-piece above the 
 door and look down upon the confusion that prevailed from one 
 end of the great cabin to the other. One-third of the mass of 
 human beings seemed to be under foot, while the balance surged 
 up and down, shouting and howling — the women screaming, the 
 children wailing and the men cursing. At last the captain and 
 clerk gained an elevated position in the forward end of the cabin, 
 and the former being a very large man, with a voice like seven 
 thunders, after a time succeeded in attracting the attention of 
 the mob, and with more power than elegance of language, said 
 the danger was past, and that the boat was all safe; that if they 
 didn't stop their infernal noise and settle down, he would shoot a 
 hundred or two of the leaders of the confusion, etc. After a few 
 minutes spent in well directed assurances and threats, the people 
 were finally sufficiently pacified to permit the captain to explain 
 the cause of the disaster and its extent. He said the larboard 
 barge had struck a rock, and had been torn into a thousand pieces, 
 she and her cargo of iron going to the bottom in less time than 
 you could say "Jack Robinson," with your mouth wide open to 
 begin with; that although the barge was, of necessity, attached 
 the steamer by immense hawsers and a cable chain, yet the latter 
 had withstood the shock with but little damage he thought, as 
 the hawsers and chains had parted or torn their fastenings instead 
 of injuring the hull materially; and the steamer had been saved 
 from capsizing or being thrown athwart the ledge by the iron 
 laden barge on her starboard side, which held her straight and 
 comparatively steady. He added that the carpenter and a crew 
 of men were already in the hold, fully prepared to head off any 
 leaks that might have been sprung by the shock, and that he 
 wanted them to settle down and cease making a pack of infernal 
 fools of themselves; enough people had already been hurt, and 
 enough damage been done; he could get them ashore in any 
 event, etc. 
 
 After this explanation, the mob cooled down, and began to see 
 themselves as others saw them — and they commenced a grand 
 scramble for their clothing, whilst many of the more humane and 
 considerate turned their attention to those who had been injured 
 in the terrible scene just enacted. 
 
Sketches of the West. '"^3 
 
 As good fortune willed it, there were none killed, although sev- 
 eral had limbs fractured or sprained, and many were severely 
 bruised; one little boy had his ear nearly torn off by being thrown 
 against a broken door-knob, as was supposed. Poor Jake, it 
 seems, had gained the cabin, and joined in with the general melee 
 and w^hen we next discovered him he was sitting in the pantry, 
 half buried in broken dishes, and his mumps terribly scored up 
 and distorted, although he received no serious injury, and we 
 soon had him dug out from among the shattered crockery and 
 again in his stateroom, where he bathed his wounds and regulat- 
 ed his mumps again as thoroughly as circumstances, with our 
 assistance, admitted. About the first well-regulated sentence 
 that Jake succeeded in digging up from his inner man was to the 
 effect that he wished himself at home; that if his mother knew 
 how things were going with him, h^ was afraid it would kill her. 
 But we tried to comfort him by assuring him that his mother was 
 not, in all probability, aware of the eventful life her dutiful son 
 was leading, and beside we told him that his trip so far was only 
 about an average traveler's experience; that he might expect an 
 " endless string " of such fun till he once more saw his mother, if, 
 indeed, he ever saw her again. Then Jake boo-hoo-awd a little, 
 and said he was a dod-rotted fool for leaving home, anyway. 
 
 The boat was found, upon examination, to be considerably in- 
 jured; although, aside from several leaks being sprung, which 
 were speedily repaired temporarily, the injuries were above the 
 water-line — along her guards and lower deck. 
 
 We finally, and without further mishap, reached St. Louis, 
 where the great load of passengers, who had become pretty well 
 acquainted with one another, separated. The greater portion of 
 them sought Missouri River steamers, while others^Jake and 
 ourself among the rest — found and took passage t>n boats for the 
 upper Mississippi. The furthest point up the river to which 
 tickets could be purchased at St. Louis, was to Muscatine, Iowa; 
 and to this point we bought and paid for our tickets, leaving 
 some twenty-five dollars of a cash capital remaining in the sev- 
 eral pockets of Jake and ourself, combined. 
 
 The boat did not leave for about twelve hours after we had tak- 
 en passage, and so, not being wholly intimidated by our Cincinnati 
 
54 Sketch en of the Went. 
 
 experience, we determined to look around the great city just a 
 little. It was not long until we came to where there was a little 
 "show," which the crier asserted was "the greatest panorama of 
 nineteenth century — or any other century!'''' Neither Jake or 
 ourself was very clear as to what a panorama was, but we deter- 
 mined, after a little council together, that if the biggest thing of 
 the nineteenth century could be seen for fifteen cents, the very 
 best thing we could do was to make the investment. We entered 
 the place and were directed to put our eye up to each of a row of 
 little peep-holes, which would enable us to " see it." By peeping 
 in, we found that the little glass through which we looked was a 
 sort of magnifier, and increased in size and beauty — and there 
 was a big chance for an increase in the latter — the common, and 
 highly-colored pictures exposed behind the screen. They were 
 just such ten-cent pictures — of battles, of Generals Scott, Tay- 
 lor, Worth and Ringgold, Captain May and his cavalry, Daniel 
 Boone and his boss coon, and so on — as could be found in any of 
 the backwoods shanties on the frontier, or in the mountain re- 
 gions of our own native State. Still, Jake allowed that " they 
 was a heap sight purtier, 'cause they was bigger, and looked sort 
 uv sleeker through them little glasses," and he became very much 
 absorbed in " the superabundant magnificence of their unpre- 
 cedented grandeur," or words to that effect. There was a sort of 
 mixed crowd about the place, jamming and jostling to ond fro, 
 and after Jake had been around and seen all the "picturs," we 
 left, and started leisurely along in the direction of the steamboat 
 landing. 
 
 Just before we reached the wharf, however, Jake stopped 
 suddenly, and grasped his vest pocket with both his hands. He 
 staggered up against an unlatched gate, and fell into the yard, as 
 the gate gave way. "Jake!" we fairly gasped in our terror at 
 his unaccountable conduct, "what in the con-darn 'd nation is the 
 matter with you— I say, Jake, what has come over you so quick, 
 anyway? speak, Jake, are you sick?" But Jake only groaned, 
 and was more than ordinarily speechless, and we thought he was 
 dying; or else, that his " nearly well mumps " had taken a sudden 
 relapse, and we glanced up and down the street to see if we could 
 discover a doctor's sign. Jake sat up, and gazed at us with a 
 
Sketches of the West. 55 
 
 wild, yet vacant, stare, as he at last feebly uttered: "My watch 
 — oh my pappy 's nice watch has gone!" That explained the seat 
 of poor Jake's disease. His pocket had been picked in "the 
 greatest panorama of the nineteenth century — or any other 
 century," and at that moment some watch fiend had poor Jake's 
 old fifteen-cent "bull's-eye," that had constituted the munificent 
 gift from Jake's father to his adventurous son. To be sure, the 
 old rattle-box was worn thin as a wafer, the case was dented up 
 like a teething-spoon, there was only one hand that clicked 
 around over the broken face, there were but three wheels and a 
 " dog" inside, and when it went at all it would either knock off 
 an hour every fifteen minutes, or wouldn't go at all; but all these 
 characteristics and eccentricities had no kind of influence in the 
 way of persuading Jake that his "pap's nice watch" wasn't 
 worth a thousand dollars in clean dust; although we assured him 
 that we could go right up town and find places where we could 
 buy better watches, than his pap's old wreck, for fiftj^ cents a 
 bushel, and if we grumbled about the measure they would throw 
 in two or three scoop-shovels full, still he remained uncomforted; 
 and so, he entered the first of a series of agonies which must have 
 aggregated about a thousand dollars in value, ere he could think 
 of becoming reconciled to far the greatest loss of his life, up to 
 date. 
 
 After awhile, however, we succeeded in comforting Jake suffi- 
 ciently to get him up on his pegs again, and to shut the man's 
 gate; we assured him that, as our mothers had taught us, it must 
 be for the best — that if some one had not stolen his watch, he 
 might have caught the smallpox; or, we might have got our legs 
 into a hole in the sidewalk and had them broken; or — or— or, 
 there might have been a great fire, or we might have been bitten 
 by a mad dog; or the world might have come to an end, or some 
 other awful thing might have happened; and, all in all, it was no 
 doubt "all for the best," though we acknowledged our inability 
 to prove it, just then. 
 
 After a time Jake's grief found expression in a torrent of tears, 
 and convulsive sobs; and, after we had stood around him, in re- 
 spectful silence for a quarter of an hour, offering nothing that 
 might mar the even flow of his comforting sorrow, we rallied him, 
 
56 Sketches of the West. 
 
 and assured him that what was, was; and what wasn't, wasn't; 
 and what isn't, isn't — including his precious watch. Hence, we 
 owed it to ourselves, and to our posterity, to get back to the boat, 
 for fear we might get left; and so, Jake said, " All right; but I'd 
 like to kill the confounded thief that has my watch, that my pap 
 gimme, an' if I ever go into another panner-rammer fur fifteen 
 cents, I hope to be dod-rotted to dod-rotation, anyway! " Jake 
 did not entirely forget his grief for many days, and several times 
 when he awoke in the night we could hear him silently weeping, 
 we presume for his pap's watch, and because of the rich mine of 
 sinfulness he had struck, so early in his career as a traveler. 
 
 Our trip to the rapids, near Keokuk was quite uneventful, and 
 while the writer enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the great 
 river, our companion generally either remained in his room, or 
 else he sat on the shady side of the boat, his hat drawn down 
 over his eyes, staring up into space and, to all outward appear- 
 ances, thinking deeply about nothing. But we excused Jake's 
 evident melancholy, under the circumstances, for even at best, it 
 was only "once in a blue moon" that he undertook the perpe- 
 tration of a whole sentence, and never, unless in the highest of 
 spirits or in some trying emergency. We have often thought 
 since, that it was our trip with Jake that developed us into so 
 great a talker; for, upon that occasion we were forced to do all 
 the talking for two,* and all the more, owing to the perpetual 
 chain of circumstances that demanded of us an extraordinary 
 amount of loquacity. 
 
 At the rapids the boat transferred her passengers around the 
 great natural barrier to navigation that existed, and at Montrose 
 — at the head of the rapids — we again embarked on a smaller boat 
 belonging to the same line, to continue our journey to Muscatine, 
 to which point our passage was paid and at which place we ex- 
 pected to have money enough left to buy tickets for St. Paul. 
 
 During the half day we stopped at the miserable little town of 
 Montrose, awaiting the transfer of baggage, freight, etc., we met 
 with another mishap, that completely unbalanced us. As Jake 
 and ourself were putting in our time by wandering along the 
 beach not far from the boat, picking up pretty stones, and really 
 enjoying ourselves more than at any time since beginning our 
 
Sketches of the West. 57 
 
 journey, a veiy finely dressed, and delightfully pleasing young man 
 came up to us, and appeared to also interest himself very much 
 in picking up the little gems occasionally found along the water's 
 edge. He casually inquired if we were passengers on the boat 
 soon to depart — the " Ben Campbell " — to which we replied affirm- 
 atively. He said he was going up on that boat, and asked how 
 far up the river we were going, and we told him to St. Paul. He 
 seemed delighted, and assured us that St. Paul was also his des- 
 tination, and that he was ever so glad to find such pleasant com- 
 panions for the long trip. Of course we were in turn, very much 
 pleased to be made so much of by so elegant and accomplished a 
 young man, and it was not long until a thorough and mutual 
 admiration society was formed— so far as outward appearances 
 went. After chatting and laughing, for a time, as we wandered 
 up and down the beach, our newly made friend(?) suddenly, and 
 as if the recollection had just occurred to him, turned to us and 
 said: 
 
 " Oh, say, boys! Have you seen that big turtle they have up 
 yonder, at that place where the big red sign is?" 
 
 We assured him that we had not. 
 
 "Well, well!" said he, "If you haven't seen that turtle, you'd 
 just better go right up now and see it." 
 
 By this time Jake's eyes began to stick out with interest, as he 
 ventured to ask how big it was; and said he had "ketched " one 
 once in the mill-dam at home that was as big as a pie-tin . 
 
 "Big as a pie-tin!" exclaimed our friend, "why this one up at 
 the red sign is six feet across his back, and has a head bigger 
 than yours — you just ought to go up an' see him." 
 
 " Je-whillakers krout!" exclaitned Jake, in return, his eyes 
 looking like a couple of onions, " I'd like to see him." 
 
 "Well," said our friend, " If you'd like to go ap, I'll go along." 
 
 "All right," the writer remarked, "we'd be obliged to you," 
 and off we started to see the wonderful beast-reptile; for the 
 truth was, the writer was quite as much excited on the turtle 
 question as was Jake. 
 
 Arriving at and entering the open door of what seemed to be a 
 saloon, our friend asked the person in attendance where the 
 turtle was: he said the man had taken it to water, and would be 
 
58 Sketches of the West. 
 
 back with it in a few minutes; to just make ourselves comfortable 
 about the place in the meantime. 
 
 At this, our friend turned to us and said: " Well, boys, this is 
 a pleasant room, and we can just look about a little till they bring 
 the turtle back. By the way, " he continued in a sort of confi- 
 dential undertone, " see, they are playing cards over at the other 
 end of the room; suppose we just carelessly work over that way; 
 I'd like to see regular cards played once — I never saw regHar 
 cards played in my life." Accordingly, we all sauntered over 
 that way, where a tall, gaunt looking man, dressed in a blue-jeans 
 suit and white choker, stood behind a table, tossing three cards 
 sort of carelessly about him, and offering to bet that no one 
 could turn up a certain one of these cards — all three he exhibited 
 after he had given them a careless toss, one over the other. Our 
 new-made friend seemed much interested in the simple-appearing 
 little game, and asked the man to show him a certain one, and 
 then see if he could not turn it up, after he, the tall man, had 
 manipulated them, just for fun, without betting anything. The 
 man accommodated him a couple of times, and sure enough, our 
 friend turned the winning card each time, which seemed to aston- 
 ish the card-man not a little; yet, Jake and the writer could 
 easily keep our eye on the right card, as he tossed them about, 
 and it seemed certain that the man must lose every bet. 
 
 Finally the man offered to bet our friend a twenty-dollar gold 
 piece that he could not turn up the right card the third time, 
 which bet was accepted and won as easily as not. By this time 
 Jake was thoroughly excited; he knew he could turn up the right 
 one a thousand times in succession; and, beside, our companion 
 now urged Jake to go for it — there was a fortune in it; and Jake 
 began to step around, like a hen on a warm griddle, his hands 
 twitched nervously in his pockets, while his eyes were protruding 
 with the idea of at least increasing our greatly depleted purses at 
 one fell stroke. But, whilst our friend had been betting and 
 winning so easily every time, and urging Jake to avail himself of 
 the wonderful opportunity to, make a haul, the writer had been 
 slyly looking about the place, and scanning the faces of those 
 who were in the room, and had finally decided that we had been 
 inveigled into a bad place: we nudged Jake, and whispered to 
 
Sketches of the West. 59 
 
 him: "Let us run out of here, quick; they're fooling us about the 
 turtle, and I believe they are going to rob us," and the writer 
 started for the door. Jake followed to the door and declared he 
 could turn the right card, he knew; our friend who had also fol- 
 lowed, insisted that it was all right, and that if we needed any 
 more money, now was our time to get it, etc., and seemed so much 
 interested in us that, in response to Jake's urgent request we 
 gave him (Jake) all the money we had, and told him that if he 
 was bound to risk it, all right — we could stand it if he could. By 
 putting both piles together, we mustered twenty-five dollars of 
 good money, and the ten-dollar counterfeit bill, and Jake shuffled 
 back to the table, spread out his money before the tall man in 
 the blue-jeans suit, and told him there was all the money he had; 
 but that he would wager it against thirty dollars in gold, and the 
 man accepted the challenge; while, to make a still more certain 
 thing in favor of Jake, he allowed him to take the winning card 
 and mark it by turning down one corner. He then took the three 
 and gave them a little toss, one over the other, and there lay in 
 plain sight the card with the corner turned down, and Jake could 
 not resist smiling, though intensely excited at his good luck as he 
 reached out and turned up the winning card — the seven of spades 
 — but when he turned it up it was the jack of hearts! The 
 gambler raked Jake's and our own earthly all into his pile, and 
 ironically asked poor Jake if he had any more money he would 
 like to bet on that "little game." 
 
 Jake turned to look at our friend, who had invited us hither, 
 but he was gone; he looked after his money, but it was gone; the 
 turtle was gone, and we told Jake that it was about time that we 
 also were gone, so he staggered along into the open air, while the 
 cold perspiration stood out on his forehead like great beads, as 
 we hastened toward the boat — neither saying a word, but poor 
 Jake looking the very personification of agonized despair. The 
 writer felt, indeed, as though ruin haunted our pathway, yet we 
 could not find it in our heart to heap coals of fire on his poor un- 
 fortunate head, then, at least; for he was evidently suffering all 
 the remorse that it was possible for him to bear and be able to 
 walk at all. We finally reached the boat, gained the roof and 
 sat down in the shade in silence, and gazed blankly up town with 
 
60 Sketches of the West. 
 
 our eyes resting upon that fatal sign, and mentally swearing that 
 we never would get off that boat again before reaching Musca- 
 tine, unless we were kicked off by the toe of superior authority. 
 
 Jake was completely and emphatically silent during the re- 
 mainder of the afternoon and evening, and we were sufficiently 
 amused by occasionally taking a look at his woebegone counte- 
 nance — grief seemed to be stereotyped in every feature. He sat, 
 humped over, with both hands in his now thoroughly empty 
 pockets and we feared at times he would either find relief in an- 
 other of those artistic bursts of grief, or else jump into the river, 
 partly with a view to drowning his sorrow, and to make sure his 
 escape from the snares of a traveler's life that might still be in 
 store for him. But Jake finally weathered it through, and the 
 next morning we could not resist the temptation of asking him if 
 he thought he had made a good purchase in the way of experi- 
 ence at Montrose. He said he had got experience enough about 
 cards and turtles to last him awhile, but he didn't know what 
 was to become of us after we got to Muscatine. This broke the 
 ice, and so we sat down in a retired corner, and began to discuss 
 seriously, the prospects, organizing ourselves into a committee 
 on " ways and means." There seemed to be ways in abundance, 
 but the means were emphatically 7ion est; and what were the 
 ways good for with no means to put any of them into execution? 
 
 At last we arrived at the end of the paid portion of our jour- 
 ney, with no plan of action fully decided upon. We went ashore 
 promptly, however, and with our grip-sacks wandered up into 
 the town, rather hoping, and yet half fearing, that something 
 might turn up. But nothing occurred for our benefit during the 
 two hours of our sitting and standing around the corners; at last 
 we concluded, that as we were thoroughbred "country jakes," 
 and did not know the first principles necessary to striking a job 
 in town, we had better strike for the country, and see if we could 
 not get something to do, whereby, in time, our shattered fortunes 
 might be mended to a sufficient extent to enable us to pursue our 
 journey. 
 
 Accordingly, just as evening was beginning to throw somber 
 shades athwart the valleys, Jake and ourself ascended the hill in 
 the rear of the town, with saddened hearts, and our grip-sacks 
 swung on sticks across our shoulders. 
 
Sketches of the West. 61 
 
 As we plodded along, more engaged in thought than in conver- 
 sation, we gradually emerged into an open country, where noth- 
 ing broke the monotony of the scene, the great prairie seeming to 
 fade away in the leaden horizon. Toward night the farmhouses 
 began to be farther and farther apart, until, w^hen twilight over- 
 took us, w^e found ourselves far out on a plain with no habitations 
 in sight. Hoping we should not have to travel many miles be- 
 fore this treeless waste would be crossed and a settlement reached, 
 we trudged on until the night grew so dark that we could follow 
 the dim road no longer, and still no " light in the window " could 
 be distinguished in any direction. At last we were reluctantly 
 compelled to abandon the idea of reaching a settlement that 
 night, and lest we should miss the road and become hopelessly 
 lost, we suggested to Jake that we "go into camp" until morn- 
 ing, disagreeable though it might be. 
 
 It must have been nine o'clock — though we could only guess at 
 the time, since Jake lost his "pap's watch," but it is likely we 
 were able to arrive at a more correct guess without it than with 
 it — when we gave up the tramp for the night; the weather was 
 not cold, though it began to cloud up and threaten rain. We 
 had just emerged from a long, low tract of country, and reached 
 a slightly elevated plateau, and we told Jake that here w^as our 
 spot to camp. The writer pretty well knew of what some of the 
 exercises of the night would consist, and so, after depositing our 
 grip-sacks together close to the track, we ordered that we both 
 now feel our way back to where the tall dry cane-grass of the last 
 year's growth, stood thickly on the ground. Here, with our 
 pocket-knives, we cut a large armful each, and also a small bunch 
 of tough w4re-grass, and with it returned to the higher ground 
 where our carpet-bags had been left. Jake ventured to inquire a 
 couple of times what we intended doing with the cane-grass, but 
 we only answered that possibly he might find out before morn- 
 ing. 
 
 After reaching our "camp," we had Jake divide the dry cane 
 into small bundles, or wisps, whilst we took small wisps of the 
 wire-grass for bands and bound about them at intervals, making 
 about twenty of the cane faggots. Then taking a match, of 
 which we fortunately had plenty, we lighted one to test its burn- 
 
62 Sketches of the West. 
 
 ing qualities, and found it to be dry as tinder, burning brightly, 
 and throwing its brilliant light far about through the increasing 
 blackness of the gathering night. 
 
 We now told Jake that all there was left for us to do was to 
 curl down on the grass, using our " grips " for a pillow, and make 
 ourselves as comfortable as circumstances, present and prospect- 
 ive, would admit. That on the morrow we should doubtless span 
 this dry and treeless plain, and reach civilization again where we 
 would probably find employment and something to eat. 
 
 As for ourself, the prospect before us was not particularly 
 discouraging, because, on our first trip to the West — as will be 
 remembered by our readers — we had suffered hardships, alone, 
 the equal of which did not probably lie in store for Jake and our- 
 self in the present emergency. But Jake, to whom all such tri- 
 als were entirely new, seemed very much cast down; probably 
 the more so, as he felt that he had been the means of bringing us 
 to our present condition of penury, and general state of grief. 
 But, as Jake's thermometer of courage fell toward zero, ours 
 arose proportionately, which was fortunate enough; and when he 
 would venture to blame himself for being the instrument of all 
 the misfortunes that he was sure lay in store for us, we would 
 rally him, and fairly scream a jubilee of some sort to drown his 
 melancholy and revive his drooping spirits. 
 
 Upon telling Jake that we had better retire to rest upon the 
 velvety green of that vast domain, he made a few remarks to 
 the effect that he had never yet been compelled to sleep on the 
 ground, and he wouldn't have his mother know he was so exposed 
 to the danger of taking "death of cold," for a fortune; she would 
 weep her eyes out. We assured Jake that "taking cold" was 
 the least concern we felt, and as for his mother knowing about 
 the "fun" we were having, she simply didn't, and that was the 
 best of it. "Yes," said Jake, "a little more such fun as we've 
 been havin' will kill just a mule — confound the goin' west, any- 
 how." We told him that what he had seen and experienced 
 was only called "fun" in this country, and that there was 
 nothing under the blue sky that could kill, or even injure, two 
 such perfectly accomplished potato-threshers as we were, anyway. 
 
 So we talked on, as wa lay prone uwon the earth resting our 
 
Sketches of the West. 63 
 
 weary limbs, and at last Jake asked us something more, relative 
 to the use we proposed putting the cane faggots to, and also said 
 something about being " allfired hungry," as he dozed off into a 
 sort of semi-conscious sleep. Thus matters stood — or rather lay 
 — with us, when suddenly there came up from the low cane-flats 
 a long, half howling, half gurgling cry, ending with a sharp, 
 strange "yap-yap!" Jake sprang up with a sudden twitch, to a 
 sitting posture and, in a startled undertone exclaimed: 
 
 "Oh, good Lordy, what's that?" 
 
 We could fairly hear his heart thump, in the dead silence that 
 followed, and at last we told him that it was a wolf; and a wolf 
 that was probably about as hungry for a square meal as ourselves. 
 
 " A wolf! Oh, cremany Lordy! Did you say it was a u'olf! — oh, 
 isn't it something else?" 
 
 "No, Jake," we answered, "it is really a wolf; and before we 
 hear the last of him, we'll hear more of him, it is altogether 
 likely, and from more of them, also." 
 
 "Oh, jewhilaker Lordy! is there wolves in this here country?" 
 
 " Yes, Jake; on these solitary flats, among the rank growth of 
 prodigious wild grasses — is where these terrible creatures breed 
 in countless numbers, and live to make night hideous with their 
 mad howlings; they feed upon mice, frogs, small animals, their 
 own aged kind, and an occasional traveler across arid wastes; 
 these brutes — 
 
 "Oh, let us go somewhere! Oh, I'll never go west again — we 
 haven't no gun, no trees to climb — oh, what'U become of us! I 
 never seed a wolf, nor never didn't hear no wolf afore, neither; 
 what'll come of us now — oh, if mother only know'd how it is with 
 me now, she'd die-i-i !" 
 
 After begging him to be a little careful about his grammar, if 
 he had any, we told Jake that all that could be done was to " put 
 our trust in the Lord and keep our powder dry," — or our cane 
 faggots, which amounted to the same thing as powder, in our 
 case. 
 
 " Well, I ol'ays did trust in the Lord, an' al'ays was purty good, 
 too, but what'll we do jist now — are they very dangerous? " 
 
 We told him they were prairie wolves, and they were not apt to 
 be very dangerous, unless driven to bravery by hunger, and were 
 
64 Sketches of the West. 
 
 in large numbers. And then another howl came up from the 
 flats not far off. 
 
 "Oh, dear there's another one!" exclaimed Jake; "Oh, if 
 mother and pap know'd we'sgoin' to be eat up with wolves — wah, 
 wah, boo-o-o-o!" 
 
 Jake was now^ on his feet, prancing and dancing about like a 
 chicken with the pip as he peered out into the surrounding dark- 
 ness; the howls became more frequent, and from various quarters, 
 showing that the creatures had scented what they thought 
 would prove a good midnight supper. In less than an hour 
 from the time the first wolf was heard, there were at least a 
 dozen in a pack, vent\iring quite uncomfortably close to the two 
 original "tramps " of the state of Iowa. Jake had grown almost 
 frantic with terror, and he had not only repeated all the lamen- 
 tations of woe he could think of, a hundred times, but had been 
 mindful of his devotional duties as well; hoping against hope 
 that he might be delivered from the snarling, snapping, howling 
 horde that surrounded us. The writer should have been in full 
 sympathy with Jake in his trepidation, had it not been for three 
 reasons: We had heard wolves before; these were only prairie 
 wolves with more noise than bravery, and even if they dared 
 assail us, our dry torches would drive them away. After they 
 had grown quite bold, and presumed to approach within a few 
 rods of us, and after poor Jake had suffered a deep repentance, 
 we gave him a bundle of dry cane, and taking another ourself , 
 we told him, the moment we lighted them, to follow, or run with 
 us directly toward them. Jake trembled out, "Oh Lordy," at 
 the idea, but in an instant both torches were aflame, and with a 
 yell we sprang tow^ard them with a perfect flambeau of fire; ere 
 they could realize their situation we w^ere almost among them, 
 brandishing our fiery weapons in all directions as if determined 
 to fire every one of their bushy tails; the animals were taken all 
 by surprise by the sudden onslaught, and with dispairing howls 
 they flew for their lives toward the cane-cover from which they 
 came. Quickly returning and lighting others, we again with 
 frantic yells, and swaying our torches, pursued to the very low 
 lands, while our enemies could be heard flying through the dry 
 brakes in all directions, yelping and howling until lost in the dis- 
 
Sketches of the West. 65 
 
 tance. Then, ere our torches were entirely consumed we returned 
 again to our camp, with a general shout of victory, and a " Thank 
 the good Lordy! " from Jake. 
 
 The remainder of the night was spent in discussing the subject 
 of " wolf," and kindred topics, as well as the prospect of finding 
 work the next day. At the earliest gray of dawn, we were again 
 on the road, very weary from the effects of the excitement of the 
 night just passed on this lonely and dreary waste. 
 
 At noon we arrived at a settlement and were treated to a plain 
 but substantial meal at the home of a pioneer, but found no 
 likely place at which to apply for employment, until about sun- 
 down, when we came to the home of an extensive and well-to-do 
 farmer, where we called. His wife, in answer to our inquiries for 
 employment, said her husband was out in a distant field, but 
 w^ould be in before long, and it was probable he could do some- 
 thing for us; in the meantime the good woman asked us to sit 
 down and partake of a bowl of milk and bread, which we gladly 
 did. We were about finishing our repast as the farmer entered, 
 and his wife made known the object of our call, when he flew into 
 a terrible rage, and threatened that unless we got off his place 
 instanter he would blow our brains out with his shot-gun. He 
 offered no explanation of his conduct, and indeed we asked for 
 none; we went, and did not stand upon the order of our going. 
 But, as we passed out of the gate, we could not resist doffing our 
 hats and bowing thanks to the good but terrified woman who 
 stood in the door. This scare was almost equal to a wolf-fright, 
 as we both decided, after getting entirely out of danger. 
 
 That night we stayed with an extremely poor family living a 
 little off the road. They bade us welcome to their very humble 
 home, and gave us liberally of the little they had to eat. He had 
 come to that country but a year before, lived on a rented piece of 
 land, and as he had no team to work it, nor cows or other prop- 
 erty, he had made extremely poor headway at supporting himself 
 and wife and their nine daughters ranging from one to sixteen 
 years of age. After we had partaken of his corn bread and weak 
 tea, the poor man entertained us until a late hour by relating to 
 us the story of his life, from a young man, which was certainly 
 the most eventful and thrilling narrative we had ever listened to. 
 
QG Sketches of the West. 
 
 It consisted of eras of misfortune and deepest poverty, one 
 only differing from another, as time rolled on its additional 
 misery and distress. Yet, after all, he seemed to enjoy reciting 
 it, and being a glib talker, his story was filled with deepest 
 interest. He said he did not know how he came to be as well off 
 as he was; and indeed it was surprising that he or any member 
 of his family were alive, even allowing only half of all he related, 
 to be true, and he told a frank, straightfoward tale, and was 
 apparantly honest in all he said. Our weary limbs rested well on 
 a pile of hay in the loft that night, and in the morning after eat- 
 ing very sparingly — for our conscience would not permit of our 
 doing full justice to the meal — we bade adieu to our kind friends 
 and wishing them better success for the future, we once more 
 struck the road in quest of either fortune or misfortune. But, 
 during the whole day we could not banish the recollection of this 
 poor, and hospitable family from our mind and this tended to 
 soften our murmurs against our own hard lot. 
 
 When night again overtook us we had arrived at the beautiful 
 capital of Cedar county— Tipton. We had traveled and fasted 
 nearly all day, and as we entered the town, we rested on the steps 
 of the flouring mill of the place, and after a little time the writer 
 entered and asked the benevolent-looking old miller for a quart 
 of wheat, which he cheerfully poured into our hat. We returned 
 to Jake with our prize, and while he sat devouring our singular 
 repast, the old miller came to the door, and gazed curiously at us. 
 Coming down and taking a sent nearby he asked us who we were, 
 where we were going and how we came to be so hungry, etc. We 
 briefly related our history, adding that we were in search of 
 employment, being anxious to earn money enough to reach our 
 yet distant destination. After hearing us through he said we 
 had indeed been having a hard time of it; and, as our statements 
 seemed honest, he would give us lodging at his home for the 
 night, and even for a couple of days, until we could look for a 
 situation. We grasped his hand and thanked him with tears in 
 our eyes for his noble generosity — Jake had done the crying thus 
 far on the whole trip, and now it was our turn. 
 
 We found the miller's wife to be as hospitable as himself, and 
 we were made most cordially at home despite the fact that we 
 
Sketches of the West. 67 
 
 had grown seedy and wayworn; After supper, however, we 
 repaired to the mill-pond and made all the improvements possible 
 in our appearance, and while making our toilets resolved in order 
 that we might not intrude unnecessarily upon our kind friends, 
 to bestir ourselves early on the morrow in search of work. 
 
 When morning came, and breakfast was over, we started for a 
 tour about the adjacent country; and after many applications 
 Jake obtained employment in a brick-yard at fifty cents a day 
 and board. We returned in the evening, and on the following 
 morning Jake wended his way to his new home, which was about 
 two miles from the village. His work was very hard and rough 
 but he faithfully toiled all that summer and till late in the 
 autumn, among the soft bricks and in the clay-pits, saving his 
 money and gaining the good opinion of his employer. 
 
 Of course, the writer was too light a weight as yet to perform 
 any very heavy labor, and so we had to look about for some 
 occupation that would come within the scope of our ability. Our 
 greatest concern, however having been to see our companion 
 provided for, joy was complete when he had obtained a "home." 
 We felt, as we must confess, a real sadness as we parted with 
 Jake — he going to the brick-yard, and we on another tour about 
 the neighboring country. After traveling nearly all day without 
 getting either work or anything to eat, we retraced our steps to 
 the village, with a sad heart and aching limbs. As we passed 
 down the principal street, we accidentally looked up and read the 
 following sign: "Tipton Advertiser— Printing Office." Why we 
 suddenly became possessed of the idea of going up stairs into 
 this newspaper office to apply for a situation — in the last occupa- 
 tion we should, under ordinary circumstances, have thought of — 
 we have never been able to understand to this day. Nevertheless, 
 go up we did, and as we cautiously and diffidently entered the 
 strange place we seemed to become impressed with a sort of queer 
 sensation, and even after entering the main office, we were on the 
 very point of turning and running down stairs again, ere we might 
 be discovered — but it was too late. The foreman of the place, as 
 we afterward found him to be, hailed us with, "Heyo, young 
 man, w^hat can I do for you?" We approached nearer, and in a 
 stammering way asked if the proprietor was in. " Yes, he's right 
 
68 Sketches of the West. 
 
 in the next room — the editorial room — would you like to see 
 him?" We almost choked as we gasped out that we should like 
 to see him if he was not particularly engaged. " All right, come 
 this way," said the foreman, and he opened the door and ushered 
 us into the presence of the editor, saying: "Judge here is a 
 young hopeful who says he would like to interview the editor;" 
 and then he turned and went back into the main office. The 
 editor was a middle-aged man, large, a far more than ordinarily 
 fine-looking gentleman, well-dressed, with a kindly face and sort 
 of fun-loving eyes. As we gazed at him for an instant, our knees 
 fairly knocked together, and we felt as though if we didn't sink 
 through the floor, we should feel ever so thankful if some seen or 
 unseen hand would throw us out at the window, ere he spoke, or 
 ive were compelled to speak to him. As we stood by the door- 
 casing cogitating upon our ridiculous position, the editor swung 
 around on his chair, and for a full half minute said not a word, 
 as he eyed us sharply from head to foot. Pretty soon he sort of 
 half smiled and said : 
 
 " You want to seethe editor, do you, you young straddle-bug?" 
 
 We ahemed and hawed, and made out to say " yes sir," though 
 we never meant "no sir," more emphatically in all our born days. 
 
 "Well, sir," he continued, do you want to whip an editor, or 
 anything of that sort?" 
 
 "N-o s-i-r," we replied. 
 
 "Do you want to subscribe for my very excellent paper?" 
 
 ^' I have nothing to pay with," we answered. 
 
 "Well, what the jumping John Rogers do you want with the 
 editor, anyway?" 
 
 "When I came up stairs, I intended to ask if you had any work 
 that I could do: but I don't suppose you have?" we made out to 
 say. 
 
 "Work to do! what could you do in a printing-office?" 
 
 That was a poser, and we frankly told him we did not know; 
 but that we could try to do something, if he had anything that a 
 common boy could work at. 
 
 " Come over here," he said, " and sit down till I look you over 
 a little — there; sit right there, till I gaze at you." 
 
 What a "funny man," thought we as we hesitatingly seated 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 ourself before him; we should have given all the work we ex- 
 pected to perform for the next six months, to be again down 
 stairs and in the open air of freedom once more. 
 
 "Now, you young catfish," he began, as he quizically eyed us, 
 " what's your name?" 
 
 We told him what it was, in full. 
 
 "Where did you come from?" 
 
 "From Pennsylvania, sir." 
 
 " Is this your first trip to golden sunset land?" 
 
 "No sir; I spent a year and a half on the Minnesota border, 
 and am on my way to that Territory again, but I got out of mon- 
 ey, and am hunting employment, that I may earn money enough 
 to continue my journey to St. Paul." 
 
 "Then you've traveled some?" 
 
 "Yes sir— a little." 
 
 "How did it happen that you came into a newspaper office to 
 find work?" 
 
 "I have been in search of work for two days among the farm- 
 ers, without finding any; and as I was coming down street I hap- 
 pened to see your sign, and thought I would come up and see if 
 you needed a boy." 
 
 "Do you think you would make a good 'devil' in a printing 
 office?" 
 
 "Agood w-h-a-t?" 
 
 "A good 'devil' — you know the boy in a printing office is 
 always called the 'printer's devil,' and most of them are first- 
 class devils. I have one now who is a finished young devil, but 
 he is not a good 'printer's devil,' nevertheless." 
 
 "What part of the business do you expect a good 'devil 'to 
 do?" we ventured to inquire. 
 
 "Well, young man, a good devil about a printing office gets up 
 with the chickens, every morning; he goes to bed at night just 
 when there is nobody around any more to order him about; he 
 does everything with a pleasant smile; he sweeps the office, saws 
 the day's wood, carries in a supply of water, and dusts the furni- 
 ture before breakfast; then, after a frugal meal, he does all man- 
 ner of chores about the place, runs errands, attends to all the 
 dirty and disagreeable little jobs, rolls the ink-roller on press- 
 
70 Sketches of the West. 
 
 days, carries papers, folds papers, makes fires, and in short any- 
 thing under Heaven that anybody about the premises can think 
 of to keep him busy. The wages for the first six months, if a 
 good devil, is board, one suit of cheap clothing and fifty cents a 
 week; after that, according to merit," 
 
 We intimated to him that it was a less money-making business 
 than we had supposed, but we did not know but that we should 
 have to try it, at any rate until we could do better. 
 
 " Well, my boy," he continued, " I have been wanting to get a 
 good boy for some time; the one I've got now wouldn't make good 
 fish-bait; you seem to be frank in your story, and if you will go to 
 work, and turn out well, I may do a little better by you than 
 that." Accordingly, it was arranged that we come early the next 
 morning, and that w^e board with the editor's family. 
 
 Our life in Tipton would doubtless have been uneventful had 
 we not been made a member of a magnificent military company 
 — the "Tipton Guards" — shortly after our enstallment as head 
 "devil " in the Advertiser office. Old Capt. Hammond, formerly 
 of Pittsburgh, was the commander of the company, and Judge 
 Spicer was second in command. At that time a strong militia 
 force was kept in Iowa, and there were in the state fifty or more 
 companies of as finely drilled soldiers as could be found in the 
 Union army, several years later. The Dubuque Rifies were con- 
 sidered the finest company in all the state, up to the time of the 
 state fair in the year of which we speak; on that occasion, how- 
 ever, when nearly the whole state force were assembled for 
 review, Captain Hammond and his Tipton guards had the 
 extreme satisfaction of carrying off the prize for the best company 
 at the state parade, both for dicipline and perfection in drill. 
 The prize — a gorgeous stand of colors — was handsomely won, 
 and as handsomely accorded by the vanquished troopers. 
 
 A month or two after we had entered upon our career as a 
 frisky junior in the "art preservative of all arts," Judge-Lieu- 
 tenant Spicer called us into his private office one day and asked 
 if we did not want to become a member of the Guards — that the 
 company numbered over ninety, but there was yet room for four 
 or five more persons who might be selected and were desirable. 
 He said w^e could barely come up to the required height, and as 
 
Sketches of the West. 71 
 
 he had taken " quite a shme " to us, he felt sure Captain Ham- 
 mond would be pleased to admit us as a member of the ' ' pony 
 squad" of his company. Of course, the idea of becoming a 
 " bold soldier " was decidedly to our adventurous taste — especially 
 in so fine a company as the Guards, whom we had already seen 
 on two parade occasions. We told the Judge that we should be 
 more than pleased at the idea, but did not possess the shekels 
 necessary to get the expensive uniform required. To this he 
 answered, "Never mind the uniform — I will take care of that 
 myself. Come with me down to our company tailor and be 
 measured for your suit, and all the etceteras for the outfit we 
 have in supply in our armory." So, we went at once and had 
 our measure taken for the garment part of the outfit, and there- 
 after drilled two hours every day, in a small "awkward squad," 
 under the instruction of a sergeant, until the next general parade 
 of the company, we appeared in the ranks on the left wing, in 
 the rich and gorgeous full uniform, ready for immediate and 
 active service on the field. 
 
 Captain Hammond had been an ofiicer in the Mexican war, 
 was a prominent citizen both in Pennsylvania and his adopted 
 state of Iowa; a most thorough dicipiinarian, a polished gentle- 
 man and a brave commander. He took the greatest pride in his 
 company, as the company certainly did in him. He could per- 
 form any company-movement in the infantry tactics with his 
 command, with an accuracy that was simply marvelous. 
 
 This is a description of the Tipton Guards as they appeared in 
 in the flowery part of military life — or military parades — but, on 
 the other hand, we will describe something, which, in that day, 
 was considered a severe test in the less showy duties of a soldier. 
 
 Many persons will remember that at that time the troubles 
 with horse-thieves in central Iowa culminated, and after several 
 years of patient suffering on the part of the law-abiding citizens 
 of the State, they finally arose in a grand army for self -protection 
 against almost an army of thieves who had become so thoroughly 
 organized that horses were being run out of the country by 
 hundreds, or even thousands. As was subsequently discovered, 
 the thieves had regular organizations in every county, with dis- 
 
SK-etches of tlie TT>.sf. 
 
 trict and general headquarters: commanders-in-chief and subord- 
 inates, with regular places of rendezvous, while their lines of 
 communication ran clear into Arizona, Texas and other western 
 fastnesses. Scores of them had been arrested-- in various parts 
 of the State, and yet their numbers — or the numbers of their 
 depredations — seemed to increase, and even those arrested were 
 seldom convicted, for some inexplicable reason. At last as before 
 stated, the citizens rose in squads of hundreds, in various local- 
 ities, and simultaneously, as if by previous arrangement, caught 
 all the thieves they could find, or those against whom well 
 grounded suspicion rested, and ornamented{?) the limbs of the 
 forest with their dead bodies. 
 
 Of course, all these proceedings, while they were secretly 
 approved by all classes, were opposed to the dignity and order of 
 the State, etc., and the mobs that were everywhere sweeping all 
 law before them had to be suppressed, and the malitia in the 
 vicinity of their operations were called out for that purpose. It 
 happened that Cedar county and the Tipton Guards were seem- 
 ingly near the middle of the territory being overrun by the mobs, 
 and the result was that the Guards were called out in the outset, 
 and kept on forced marches first in one direction and then in 
 one direction and then another, by night and day, for several 
 weeks. 
 
 A mob of eight hundred men, early in the fray, caught two of 
 the thieves who had been operating in the vicinity of Tipton. 
 They were captured in an oak thicket about three miles from the 
 town; word was brought to town, and under orders from the 
 State the Guards flew to arms, and marched by double quick to 
 the seat of the trouble. The mob threatened to clean out the 
 militia if they dared to interfere, and when we arrived, prepara- 
 tions were being made to string up the two pleading thieves, 
 Capt. Hammond, however, was not the man to quail in the pres- 
 ence of danger, and the threatening mob knew it. Though the 
 mob could have annihilated the company at one fell swoop, had 
 they been organized — and their wrath at the idea of losing their 
 prisoners was sufficient to incite them to fatal resistance. 
 
 Our commander, demanded, in the name of the State, the sur- 
 render of the two prisoners, which was angrily refused by the 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 spokesman of the mob, aad Captain H. ordered his company to 
 '* Load," and "Fix bayonets!" The mob, as the soldiers went 
 through all the necessary manual in obedience to the order, be- 
 came almost hushed, as they watched with unmistakable admir- 
 ation the perfection with which the order was fulfilled. The 
 ropes were already around the necks of the cringing prisoners, 
 and the mob, which had been a swaying, cursing mass of men, 
 now stood like statues — not a word being spoken to break the 
 stillness, save the quiet yet earnest orders of our commander. 
 We took note of the two or three minutes that passed there, as 
 being a space of time that " tried men's souls." There we were, 
 one hundred men under orders, against eight times our number 
 of sorely wronged and determined fellow-citizens, who had been 
 maddened by the outrages perpetrated vipon them, to the course 
 they were pursuing: they had, too, entered into a compact with 
 thousands of other citizens throughout that region to rise in their 
 might, and never cease the "good work " until the last horse- 
 thief had expired, at the hands of an outraged populace. 
 
 At last, the company, with their bayonets fixed and pieces 
 loaded, came to a "shoulder arms." Then, Captain H., with a 
 wonderful coolness and precision turned and saluted the mob, 
 saying : " Men, in the name of the State of Iowa, and by author- 
 ity of the governor thereof, I demand the surrender of the prison- 
 ers into my hands — this is my final demand, and must be acted 
 upon instantly, or I shall move to their rescue !" 
 
 A slight swaying was now noticeable, and a low muttering hum 
 began to vibrate through the mob, which grew louder and more 
 general as the moments passed, with no direct response to the 
 command of our captain. At last the order came, " Charge bay- 
 onets — forward, double-quick, march !" The company sprang 
 forward in solid line, and as they advanced with thundering 
 tread, the mob fell back in confusion before the wall of bayonets, 
 and left the prisoners to be captured rather than to be surren- 
 dered. Many a heart beat lighter, as a hollow square was formed 
 and the prisoners placed therein, in which position they were 
 conducted safely to town, the mob following closely behind, hoot- 
 ing and howling, firing their guns and pistols in the air, and 
 making the most threatening demonstrations. 
 
74 Sketches of the West. 
 
 The prisoners were confined for the night in the court house, 
 with a strong guard both inside and out, and ere night came on 
 the mob had, to all appearances, dispersed. In fact, it was be- 
 lieved that they had given up their plans of violence, and had 
 departed to effect the capture of others, whose whereabouts were 
 understood. It was not until nearly daylight, when the town and 
 the company — now completely off their guard — were fast asleep, 
 and even the court-house guards had grown lax in their vigils, 
 that all surmises as to the movements of the mob were found to 
 be false. The gray dawn of morning was made hideous by their 
 yells, and the carnage of their onslought, as they came rushing 
 from all sides into the court-Tiouse square, bearing immense tim- 
 bers, with which to crush in the doors. Ere the company could 
 rally, or people could get dressed, the wooden court-house had 
 been nearly demolished, the shrieking prisoners dragged out, hur- 
 ried into the suburbs of the village and hung to a tree until they 
 were dead — the company arriving on the scene only to see the 
 mob dispersing in the uncertain light of morning, and to witness 
 the last death struggle of the two poor wretches — Gleason and 
 Soper, both young men, who had been among the leaders of the 
 local branch of the great gang of thieves. The company cut down 
 their bodies, took them back to the court-house, and in less than 
 an hour from the time the first yell of the mob was heard, 
 the corpses of the two prisoners were laid out in the now nearly 
 demolished court-house, awaiting the claims of friends, if they 
 had any. Thus ended our first campaign of actual service, and 
 the company was disbanded, subject to call. 
 
 But our company, above all others in the State, seemed to be 
 unfortunately located to gain much rest. Every day or two, and 
 sometimes in the blackest hour of night, the long roll of the com- 
 pany's drums would summon us to the public square, for an ex- 
 pedition in some direction, in response to a summons for help; 
 and, though every member came to arms in an instant, the com- 
 pany marching with the utmost haste and promptness — night or 
 day, rain or shine — they neyer encountered any of the mobs in a 
 pitched battle, though on several occasions bloodshed was barely 
 prevented. This fact, we attributed, and correctly, we think, to 
 the fact that the mobs and their leaders well knew the character 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 of the man who commanded the Tipton Guards. They knew that 
 Captain Hammond would not hesitate when in the line of his 
 duty, no matter what stood in the way, nor how great the odds 
 were against him. 
 
 On one occasion we made a forced march to a place where an 
 old man and his two sons were said to be in the hands of the 
 mob, but hearing of our approach, they hastened their work, and 
 by the time the troops arrived, they were just passing out of sight 
 over the rolling prairie, leaving their victims hanging to a wide- 
 spreading tree, shot full of holes, while pinned on the breast of 
 the father was this card : 
 
 "These men gave succor and aid to horse-thieves, and their 
 place was a safe retreat for thieves in distress. We know this 
 for a certainty, and for this they have died at our hands. Take 
 them now, we are through with them. Signed, " Regulators." 
 
 When they saw our approach, they fired a salute, waved their 
 hats, and disappeared in the distance, whilst the company return- 
 ed home with the dead. 
 
 Another time, the company was summoned to duty about mid- 
 night, of a terrible stormy and gloomy night. A messenger had 
 arrived from Mechanicsville — if we remember correctly — bringing 
 the news that a mob of ten or twelve hundred men had entered 
 that town in the evening with several prisoners, and when the 
 messenger left they were being put through the form of a hasty 
 trial, preparatory to being " swung off." That they swore if any 
 interference was interposed by the authorities, they had better 
 say their prayers, etc. The messenger said they were in such 
 great force that they would likely take their time, and he thought 
 if we proceeded promptly, and approached the place cautiously, 
 we might effect a rescue. 
 
 While the company gathered in the square. Captain Hammond 
 summoned a lot of teams, and in a surprisingly short time ten or 
 twelve wagons left Tipton, pell-mell through the mud and rain, 
 loaded with troops, headed for Mechanicsville, a dozen or fifteen 
 miles away. 
 
 Just before reaching the town, the wagons were halted and the 
 company formed, and after loading and fixing bayonets they 
 advanced in silence, making a slight detour, so as to enter the 
 
76 Sketches of the West. 
 
 place from an unlocked for quarter. It was a diflBcult feat, as it 
 was excessively dark, and a portion of the ground was very 
 rough. At last, however, the little army emerged from a cover 
 of undergrowth, nearly on the opposite side of the town, and 
 stood suddenly on the brow of a hill overlooking the village. Such 
 a sight as met our gaze was awe-inspiring, to say the least. Down 
 in the village, by the glaring light of immense bonfires could be 
 seen a rude scaffold with bodies hanging thereon, and a hooting, 
 howling mob, like specters, running to and fro in the wierd light 
 and apparently preparing to fly from the place. We afterward 
 learned that they had heard of our approach and had hurried up 
 the execution. Captain Hammond, upon seeing that he was 
 again thwarted, at once ordered a countermarch, silently sought 
 the wagons, and just before noon the jaded horses and weary 
 company arrived at their homes. 
 
 This was among the very last of our expeditions, and the mobs 
 — we think fortunately for the State and its people — carried the 
 day, in spite of the utmost vigilance on the part of the authorities, 
 and succeeded in thoroughly cleaning out and breaking up the 
 army of horse-thieves who had long maintained a perfect reign of 
 terror throughout the rural districts. 
 
 But one more incident occurred in our experience as a member 
 of the Tipton Guards, worthy of mention: It will be remembered, 
 also, that this was the year of the Spirit Lake massacre — wherein 
 the infamous Sioux chief, Ink-pa-du-ta, and his bloodthirsty In- 
 dian followers, slaughtered the few families who had settled on 
 the borders of the beautiful Spirit Lake, up on the northern 
 boundary of Iowa. Word of the terrible affair was swiftly brought 
 to the governor of the state, and he in turn promptly telegraphed 
 to several companies of the State troops to repair to the scene of 
 the bloody massacre with the utmost haste. 
 
 Of course the Tipton Guards were among the companies ordered 
 to go forward, and now there seemed to be sanguinary business 
 ahead, sure enough. 
 
 For such an expedition a considerable preparation had to be 
 made, but if any commander could accomplish speed, that one 
 was Hammond; and instantly on receipt of orders, he had every 
 man summoned to the parade grounds by the long-role-beat, read 
 
Sketches of the West. 11 
 
 them the order from the goverDor, and then told them that 
 although their fortitude and bravery had been tried to the quick, 
 that duty still called — this time to make all haste to the frontier 
 for the protection of defenseless men, women and children from 
 massa^cre by the ruthless savage. He knew that not one 
 would flinch or demur, notwithstanding the severe trials they 
 had already undergone, as citizen soldiers. 
 
 There were many of tfie company who, by this time, began to 
 see i'hiit playing soldier, and being a soldier, were two altogether 
 different things; and although they began their preparations for 
 a protracted absence with alacrity, their were many wry faces 
 over it, and a few quaking knees, at thought of being ordered to 
 the fronteir to fight Indians. 
 
 To the great relief of nearly all, just about the time Captain 
 Hammond had his company in complete readiness for a campaign, 
 and was on the very eve of departure — the good-byes, farewells, 
 and last fond embraces had been said and enacted between lovers 
 and sweethearts, husbands and wives, sons and parents — a mes- 
 sage came, countermanding the order, and bidding us hold our- 
 selves in readiness for orders, instead. But, further orders never 
 came, and thus ended the active service of the Tipton Guards, 
 during the time the writer was identified with the organization. 
 
 At the end of seven or eight months — having in the mean time 
 been promoted to the exalted position of a sergeant in the Guards 
 — we obtained an honorable discharge, canceled all our obliga- 
 tions to our big-hearted employer, arranged with Jake — who had 
 saved up his earnings — to continue our journey to Minnesota, and 
 we arrived in due time in St. Paul, with no further incident 
 worthy of especial mention, after a lapse of nearly nine months 
 since leaving home. This was our second and last trip to the 
 Northwest, and the singular "accident" of our having, in our 
 extremity gone into the Tipton Advertiser office to "get a job," 
 seems to have decided our life-work — that of a printer and jour- 
 nalist. 
 
 Jake, after "roughing it" on the frontier for a year or two, 
 returned home, married, and settled down to the noble task of 
 raising stock, and a large family. 
 
"A MIGHTY CLOSE SHAVE." 
 
 ONCE upon a time, when Minnesota was an extremely 
 young commonwealth, and when the writer was but a 
 nimble youth, we had an adventure with wolves; which, 
 among several other adventures with these denizens of the 
 forest, during those primitive days, always made us despise a 
 wolf. 
 
 "Billy" was a frontier chum of ours, and although consider- 
 ably older, was but little larger of stature than ourself . He was 
 a famous hunter, for so young a man — small, wiry, with a sharp 
 eye, fearless, and well versed in woodcraft. We had often accom- 
 panied Billy in his whole day chases, after deer; he would start 
 out as soon as it was light, in a cold winter morning, with his 
 tomahawk and knife in secure position, and after taking a fresh 
 chew, he would say: "Now follow me, and step in my tracks, and 
 I guess you can keep up." At this he would strike what he 
 called a "lope," and we, adopting his gate, would lope after 
 him. Billy was a young man of very few words, and most of 
 them were spoken with such an air of mystery that one had to be 
 well acquainted with him in order to catch their full significance, 
 especially when on one of his hunting excursions. He would 
 keep up a " lope " from morning till night, on the trail, unless he 
 came upon his game before, stopping only at about noon for ten 
 minutes to eat a frozen biscuit, and get his bearings. We accom- 
 panied him on more than one occasion when we must have trav- 
 eled forty miles, through snow more than two feet in depth, the 
 temperature many degrees below zero — uphill and down, through 
 " openians," dense forests and thickets. In those days there was 
 scarcely a settler in the big woods, excepting here and there along 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 on the river. The whole region was an unsettled, unbounded and 
 almost unexplored wilderness, well inhabited, however, by deer, 
 bear, wolves, lynx, wild cats, etc., with here and there an en- 
 campment of wild Sioux Indians. 
 
 Upon occasions when Billy failed to come up with his game, he 
 would cease the chase just as nightfall was approaching, and af- 
 ter getting his reckoning, would strike out on the straight line for 
 home. It was upon one of these occasions that he found himself 
 at dark, about seven miles, on a direct line, from our settlement. 
 He proposed that, as we were pretty tired, we take it rather leis- 
 urely, and we would be able to make the distance, if we did not 
 lose our course, by bedtime. The moon was shining brightly, but 
 the cold had grown to be intense. We traveled along at as fast a 
 walk as our tired limbs and a deep snow would admit, neither 
 saying anything, more than an occasional question and answer. 
 
 We had gone but a short distance, however, when the long 
 heavy howl of a timber wolf was heard from the depths of a 
 thicket that bordered upon a little stream we were about to cross. 
 Billy remarked, merely, "that he was a big 'n." We said, 
 we thought, from the sound, that he was big enough to eat both 
 of us, if he happened to have as good an appetite as ourselves. 
 We trudged along, however, and relapsed into silence. We both 
 knew, that during a long time of deep snow, the wolves were apt 
 to be more fierce than usual, owing to the difficulty in finding 
 food; still, our confidence in our swiftness of foot, and great en- 
 durance, made us feel tolerably at ease, especially when we knew 
 the deepness of the snow would considerably retard the speed of 
 the wolves should they strike our trail. We had but barely 
 gained the opposite bank of the stream, when the same howl 
 again reached our ears, which was speedily answered by another 
 and another, until the narrator's hair fairly stood up. We both 
 stopped, involuntarily, as it were, and listened breathlessly for a 
 moment, as the savage howls died away in the dark and silent 
 woods, only to be taken up by another of the hungry monsters. 
 We had every confidence in our companion, both as to his brav- 
 ery, trueness and sagacity, and knew that whatever might befall 
 us, our own fate would also be Billy's fate. 
 
 Finally, Billy remarked in his droll, intrepid manner : " Home's 
 
80 Sketches of the West. 
 
 a better place than this at this time o' night, when them tarnal 
 critters are talkin' that way — kin ye f oiler me at a pretty fair 
 gait, my lad?" 
 
 We told him we would try, but rather intimated to him that 
 we would like to have him stay with us, if we failed. 
 
 "Look here boy," said Billy, "I never got into camp without 
 my company; jump into my track every lope, an' it'll be easier fur 
 ye; I know a trail that'll bother them devils, if they f oiler us, 
 and, mind ye, keep close to me, an' when I jump, ye jump, too, 
 an' we'll give 'em as neat a trot as they've had fur many a day — 
 let's be goin'." 
 
 At this, we started, and keeping Billy's instructions in mind, 
 we fell regularly into his tracks as fast as he made and left them. 
 On, on we went with measured strides; the cold had grown so 
 terrible that our feet seemed to be frozen, though our body was 
 steaming hot. Neither of us had on our feet anything but one 
 pair of short-legged woolen socks and a pair of boots, which were 
 frozen like rocks, and our feet began to lose their feeling, which 
 was a bad indication. In response to our inquiry as to how his 
 feet felt, Billy said his didn't feel at all; and he said he reckoned 
 we'd have to take our boots off and go in our stocking feet or else 
 lose our toes. 
 
 The wolves had now struck our trail, as we could plainly tell, 
 and there seemed to be a jolly pack of them, indeed. Of course, 
 we could not take to a tree, as we would soon perish with cold ; 
 we could not stand our ground, because there were too many of 
 them to fight with old-fashioned muzzle loading rifles, and be- 
 sides, our hands had become too numb to load, or to even handle 
 our tomahawks probably. The only way out of that "pickle," 
 as Billy called it was to ride out on our legs. 
 
 The wolves were evidently gaining on* us pretty rapidly, and 
 ere we had made a mile, it seeemed as if pandemonium had been 
 let loose at our heels. As we leaped over the bank of a little fro- 
 zen brook, Billy stopped suddenly and sat down on the snow, as 
 he remarked: "The snarling brutes might just as well have us 
 fur their supper as fur to get home without no feet — we'll do bet- 
 ter without no boots on." 
 
 At this he snatched the boots off his senseless feet while we 
 followed his example, asking no qviestions. 
 
Sketches of the M^est. 81 
 
 " I'll leave my boots right here, and they'll do fur the hungry 
 dogs to fight over fur a minit or two, and they'll lose a little 
 ground for their foolishness; you carry your'n a little furder on." 
 
 Scarcely a dozen seconds were lost in the operation, and again 
 we went bounding through the snow, all the faster from being 
 lighter of foot — though our feet by this time had no more feeling 
 than if they had been made of stone. 
 
 Soon the pack, as we could plainly tell, came upon the boots, 
 and for the space of half a minute or so, wolf-jangling of the 
 highest order stirred the monotony of the wilderness. Billy 
 could not resist one of his quaint remarks, and so, between jumps 
 he made out to observe: " I reckon them hounds are janglin' to 
 see which'll wear my boots." 
 
 "More likely they're trying to decide which shall eat them," 
 we suggested. 
 
 "Well I reckon they're purty scraggly lookin' boots by this 
 time, anyhow," he returned. 
 
 It was very evident, that whatever disposition was made of 
 them the pack scented better game ahead, and on they came, 
 gaining steadily on their prey. When within a mile and a half 
 of the settlement, they got so near us that occasionally we could 
 hear their fierce panting, as they came fiying along through the 
 deep snow. The case began to look hopeless indeed, and it was 
 evident that unless some unforseen turn of fortune came to pass 
 in our favor, another half mile must tell the tale of our " wiping 
 out." 
 
 It now resolved itself into a race for life, and no mistake. 
 Though our strength began to rapidly fail, our courage, some- 
 how, kept up to a point beyond what might have been expected. 
 Billy, ever and anon, would turn his head and give us a word of 
 encouragement, of some sort, and seemed to feel that the run for 
 life would give us the victory. Just as the wolves came bound- 
 ing over the brink of a small ravine which we had just crossed, 
 Billy said, " throw your boots and gun." We did so, and in a 
 moment more he threw his gun also. " Get your hatchet in one 
 hand — knife in the other," he said and both acted on the word. 
 
 The boots and guns had the effect of somewhat breaking the 
 gait of the pack, and gave us a little start. 
 
82 Sketches of the West. 
 
 On we flew w^ith every nerve strained to the utmost tension, 
 though it seemed plain that they must overtake us ere we reached 
 within half a mile of home, for now the foremost of the snarl- 
 ing, panting brutes were within a dozen rods of us. 
 
 "When I jump, you foller me," said Billy, "fur it's our only 
 chance — so don't ye stagger at it, but leap just as I do; d'ye 
 hear?" 
 
 We gasped out, "yes " and hardly had we uttered it, ere Billy 
 gave a leap and a yell, and we flew after him. Down, down we 
 went, and the first assurance we had that we had not jumped 
 from the top of the rocky mountains was, that instead of contin- 
 uing to go through space for a mile or so, we went head over 
 heels into a monster snow drift about forty feet below — Billy 
 landing therein but a few feet from where we struck. 
 
 As luck would have it we sprained no joints nor broke a bone, 
 though being somewhat stunned and bruised, and Billy had been 
 equally fortunate; and, true to his character, he soon scrambled 
 out through the drift and called out: 
 
 " Whar are ye now, lad? Give us yer voice a trifle: fur I don't 
 want to know I made yer kill yourself — are ye live un' kickin, 
 anywhere 'round here?" 
 
 About at the conclusion of his inquiries, we had sufiiciently 
 recovered from the shock, and came digging out at the lower 
 side of the drift on to solid footing in the bottom of what was 
 known as "Big Coulie." 
 
 "I thought," he remarked "that we'd give them the slip one 
 way if we couldn't another," he said as he came limping up to 
 where we stood, " an' now the tarnal critters can just howl their 
 heads off, up yonder. If they want to, but their too big cowards 
 to make that sort of jump; an' the only way they can reach us 
 is to go up the Coulie a mile and come down a cross ravine; an' 
 its har'ly worth their while, 'cause we'll strike camp now in a 
 ten minutes' jog, by foUerin' down here on the ice." 
 
 Sure enough, we left the wolves away up on the verge of the 
 precipice, howling, and fighting each other in their rage, and 
 soon we struck the settlement, a pair of very sorry looking 
 hunters. Our hair and eyebrows, and our clothes were a mass 
 of ice and frost, we found, all our toes, heels, and the sides of 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 83 
 
 our feet were badly frozen, which kept us within the log cabin 
 for a number of weeks. 
 
 We have always since reverted to the adventure as a case of 
 being " Snatched from the jaws of death," or the jaws of a pack 
 of wolves, which amounts to the same thing. 
 
 Billy always referred to it as " A mighty close shave," 
 
LOST IN A STORM. 
 
 IT was late in the fall of 1856; the country on the upper Minne- 
 sota River was beyond the borders of civilization even at that 
 time. Our brothers had a contract for transporting govern- 
 ment freight from St. Paul to Fort Ridgely, then a new military 
 post high up on that tortuous and diflBcult river. We had made 
 three trips by flatboat and had proceeded up the river on our 
 fourth and last trip to within some forty miles of the post, by land, 
 and double as far by water. We laid up for that night just after 
 passing a tedious rapids, and in the morning found the boat fro- 
 zen in, and further progress impossible. 
 
 This was a "pretty kettle of fish " as our brother expressed it, 
 when in the morning he went out on deck and looked the icy 
 prospect o'er. 
 
 A council was held after our breakfast of black coffee, pork and 
 biscuit, and it was resolved that while he would proceed to the 
 fort overland, and employ teams there to haul the freight through, 
 we should proceed to an Indian village not far away, procure an 
 Indian-pony and make the trip th€reon back to the village of St. 
 Peter and procure the necessary money to pay the expense of de- 
 livering the freight through by team — there being money to our 
 credit deposited at the latter place. 
 
 After considerable negotiating we finally procured of the old 
 Indian chief at the village, what afterward proved to be a most 
 faithful little pony, and one capable of the most wonderful endu- 
 rance. 
 
 It was about the middle of the afternoon before we were ready 
 for a start across the uninhabited region stretching away some 
 
Sketches of the West. 85 
 
 thirty or forty miles toward St. Peter; but, nothing daunted, and 
 believing we could follow the rather plain trail, the general course 
 of which was nearly parallel with the river valley, and after get- 
 ting full instruction from our brother, as well as many a caution 
 to watch our course and to make as much of the distance before 
 nightfall as possible, we gave the pony the regular Indian whoop 
 and were soon out of sight over the neighboring bluffs. 
 
 Before leaving the boat we noticed heavy snow-clouds banking 
 up in the west, and had we possessed more experience in the mat- 
 ter of snow storms on the prairies we should have known it to be 
 madness to have undertaken such a trip through such a country 
 in the face of the accumulating evidence of an approaching storm. 
 
 Our progress was both rapid and pleasant for the remainder of 
 the afternoon, and as our wiry little horse sped along the trail, 
 and we gazed about on the vast and wild domain on every side^ 
 we almost grew" enthusiastic at times in its enjoyment. There 
 had fallen the previous night about an inch of snow, and the great 
 prairie rolled away in undulating and solitary grandeur as far as 
 the eye could reach. There was nothing to break the lonely spell 
 that prevailed, save an occasional flock of prairie chickens that 
 would start up in our path, a fox or prairie-wolf that would now 
 and then be startled from his lair, by the clattering hoofs of our 
 little pony, and go scudding away with a "yip" to some locality 
 where there was more quiet and less clatter than there was along 
 our path. 
 
 As night approached, the storm also came with it, and by dusk 
 it was snowing very hard, and the wind also blew considerably; 
 though, as good luck would have it, neither the wind or weather 
 were cold. By the time darkness overtook us, we judged we had 
 made two-thirds of the distance, and were within twelve or fifteen 
 miles of our destination. Just before dark we took as thorough 
 a view of the lay of the country ahead and upon either side of us, 
 as the prevailing storm would admit, though about all the land- 
 marks distinguishable were the distant belt of timber that skirted 
 the river away to our right, and the grove at the head of Swan 
 Lake — we believe that is the name of the large lake lying north- 
 west of St. Peter — which latter we passed, and it was the last 
 object we saw during the night that followed. 
 
86 SJcetches of the West. 
 
 Up to this time the storm had given us no uneasiness; in those 
 days " roughing it " was but another name for thorough enjoy- 
 ment ; and though but a mere lad, we had been through so many 
 clear and well-defined cases of "roughing it" on the frontier, 
 that the storm in which ourself and our little Indian pony were 
 then thoroughly enveloped promised, to our mind, only a real 
 neat occasion for a bit of rare adventure. The idea of our becom- 
 ing totally, and well-nigh hopelessly lost on that terrible night 
 never for one instant enterd our head. In the first place, we had 
 every confidence in our ability to keep at least somewhere near a 
 proper course, and of coming out all right in a couple of hours or 
 so after night had set in; and besides, we felt sure the pony's in- 
 stinct would prevent our going very far astray. 
 
 The night was not a very dark one, and had it not been for the 
 blinding storm, that had now begun to sweep over the prairie 
 with great severity, we could have kept on our course with but 
 little difficulty. 
 
 Very soon after passing Swan Lake, however, we found it im- 
 possible to follow the trail, and it was not long until the storm 
 had increased to a fury; all we could do was to sit astride our 
 little animal and bury our face as well as we could in our coat 
 collar and the Indian sash we had wound around our head and 
 neck, our feet were incased in moccasins, and moccasin-blankets, 
 and we wore buckskin leggings, coming above the knee, and 
 mittens of the same material. It was not until we had lost all 
 sight of everything, depending upon the sagacity and endur- 
 ance of our pony, that we began to realize the terror of our situa- 
 tion. The snow soon grew so deep that the pony could only 
 struggle through it on a walk, and whither he was traveling we 
 knew not, nor did we believe the pony himself could keep his 
 bearings in such a wild storm. The snow fell, seemingly, in 
 masses, and we felt sure that we must be buried alive. 
 
 On, on we went. The wind blew a hurricrne and we can never 
 forget the awful sensations with which we were thrilled as it 
 rushed across the plain with that heavy, ceaseless roar only heard 
 where no trees or shrub exists to mar its continuous moan. The 
 little animal that carried us would sometimes stop, and paw the 
 ground in his trepidation, and blow at the nostrils, as if to say 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 that he was lost, given out and perishing. We could have will- 
 ingly dismounted and struggled along as best we could on foot, 
 but something seemed to tell us to remain mounted, despite our 
 almost irresistable inclination, through pity, to relieve our noble 
 little animal of his burden. His gait grew unsteady and fitful as 
 the night advanced, and by midnight — as we judged — we had 
 become so chilled, weak and wretched, that it was only with the 
 greatest difficulty we could retain our position, and many times 
 came near rolling headlong into the snow — which, had we done 
 would doubtless have ended our career, as we never could have 
 gained our feet again ; much less mounted the almost exhausted 
 pony. 
 
 We now felt sure we were wandering, without course, simply 
 governed by the formation of the ground, and as the wind and 
 storm dictated. We lay forward on our pony, and balanced our- 
 self by clinging about his neck with our arms, and thus fell into 
 a semi-conscious state. We had read of persons who had been 
 exposed to these bhzzards, and that the greatest danger to be 
 feared was the inability to resist going to sleep — which under 
 such circumstances would prove the last slumber. Against this 
 almost overpowering inclination we aroused our greatest energy, 
 and battled with it as only a determined will could, in the face 
 of a full knowledge of the result, should we give up to it. It did 
 seem, at times, as though we must succumb to the utter stupifi- 
 cation that held us in its power like a vice; had we possessed a 
 world, we should have given it all for one sweet sleep. Yet we 
 fought it, and although at times — as if it were a dream — we could 
 see our old home, with its warm fire-place, its cheerful rooms 
 and happy family group gathered around the hearth, we did not 
 lose all knowledge of our actual position. It was a life struggle 
 between an agonizing desire to sleep and an unconquerable deter- 
 mination to remain awake. 
 
 A happy circumstance it was, that although as the night wore 
 away it grew colder, yet during the whole time it did not become 
 freezing cold. The storm prevailed with unabated fury until to- 
 ward morning, when it abated somewhat, though it still kept up 
 with great severity. As if to reward us for our determined battle 
 against an inclination to plunge off into the snow, and sleep and 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 die, the hours of the approaching morning gradually, and to some 
 extent brightened our senses; though our whole frame was set 
 and stiff, and it was with the greatest pain and difficulty that we 
 could raise our arm to the briddle rein, had we desired to. Of 
 course we had allowed the pony to stand, or proceed, and to wan- 
 der as he felt disposed during the terrible hours of that awful 
 night, because we felt sure that if he could not find his way to a 
 settlement, through the wonderful instinct the horse is known to 
 possess, certainly it was not in our power to find the way out of 
 the solitude of a trackless, snow-bound, and storm-ravaged plain. 
 
 We had well-nigh given up all hope of ever reaching the settle- 
 ment, however, because we had every reason to believe, by this 
 that the pony had simply been wandering away most of the time 
 — drifting before the terrific storm, and from his spasmodic 
 actions, we knew he could keep his feet but a short time longer 
 at best; and as for ourself, we had now reached and passed sev- 
 eral stages of suffering, and the only other thing that now seemed 
 left us to do was to die, and be wrapped in a snowy sheet, and 
 buried by the sweeping and mourning winds. 
 
 But, Hark ! — no, it was the clamor of the storm. No — listen — 
 is it a voice? We made out to reach the rein and halt the pony, 
 and held the little breath left us to catch the sound — if sound it 
 was, other than the roar of the storm-king, as he reveled in his 
 victory. Yes ! — there it is again — away here to the right, and up 
 here in the face of the wind — is surely the sound of a human 
 voice! God be praised ! — hark! Yes, it is really true! We grasp 
 convulsively the rein, and turn our dying animal's face to the 
 storm, and urge him to proceed, directly into the jaws of the hur- 
 ricane; his will seemed to rise in a last struggle to obey 
 our demand, and he crawls along, as the jog of the rein indicates. 
 The sound grows plainer ! It is a voice, and seems to be contin- 
 uous, as if talking loudly! Ho! A light glimmers fitfully through 
 the falling snow! A moment more and v/e are at the cabin door. 
 The voice ceases within, but we raise ours feebly from without, 
 and a stalwart pioneer opens the door and stares out in utter as- 
 tonishment. He takes in the situation at a glance, and whilst 
 his noble companion holds a candle in the little window, he car- 
 ries us in his great strong arms, into his humble cot, which is 
 
Sketches of the West. 89 
 
 half buried in the snow, and lays us on the bed, well back from 
 the fire; then he leads the pony into the shed at the end of the 
 cabin, and returns to ascertain our condition. He finds that we 
 are not frozen, but chilled nigh unto death, and the question is a 
 serious one as to whether we will not perish, even yet. 
 
 Consciousness is now blotted out; and when we awake many 
 hours later, we find that everything that kind and thoughtful 
 hearts could do, has been done to warm into renewed existence 
 the triflipg life-spark we brought to the humble though hospita- 
 ble cot. 
 
 We found, for two days, such a home in this frontier cabin as 
 is only found among the noble pioneers of our borders. In the 
 meantime, we told them our story of that night, and how we had 
 heard his voice, and followed it till we had reached his door. We 
 asked him what it was he was saying so loudly and continuously 
 as to attract our stupefied attention, and so, guide us through 
 the storm until we found his hut. He said he was engaged, at 
 the time, in family worship; and that it was his prayer — made 
 more than usually powerful and lengthy by reason of the storm 
 that raged without — in behalf of any that might have been over- 
 taken by the storm's fury, that had arrested our attention, and 
 guided us to our rescue — and he thanked God for that early and 
 devout prayer that had proved our saving. Is it necessary to add 
 that we also thanked God for that prayer? 
 
 Two days after, our pioneer saviour guided us to St Peter — 
 eight miles distant. We both went on foot, for the noble little 
 horse was found dead, by our host, a few hours after we had 
 reached his cabin. 
 
ON PICKET. 
 
 IT was during the time the Union army was lying in front of 
 Buckner's Confederates, north of Bowling Green, Ky. There 
 was a distance of some ten or twenty milei^ between the two 
 great armies proper, and the intervening belt was the scene of 
 many a stirring adventure, and narrow escape on the part of both 
 Union and Confederate soldiers. Our regiment had been posted 
 on the line of railroad running from Louisville through Bowling 
 Green and on to Nashville, some two or three weeks ere the inci- 
 dent occurred of which we are about to speak. During that time, 
 however, it was the writer's privilege to be a member of many of 
 the scouting parties, foraging parties, and advance picket-squads. 
 This was the case because we were, most of the time, made a 
 member of these parties by our own urgent request. We never 
 enjoyed better health than during that time. We had enlisted 
 with a set determination to avail ourself of every opportunity to 
 see and experience every phase of a soldier's life, and when hun- 
 dreds of others murmared we would laugh and kick up our heels 
 in ecstacies, like a juvenile mule in the presence of a hungry lion. 
 We do not claim any special praise for this fact, because it was 
 simply the result of a sort of enthusiastic mania which, whilst it 
 served us well, did not indicate any deeper patriotism, probably, 
 than actuated thousands of those who sometimes murmured un- 
 der trial. Then again there were thousands of men who had bet- 
 ter sense than we, it is to be presumed, and took their service in 
 the army as a very serious business, from the first. We did not 
 strike the idea of its being a very excessively serious business 
 until after we had seen some considerable service: and, as a child 
 
Sketches of the West. 91 
 
 never entertains any fear of the fire until after it has felt its 
 effects, so we did not care a " continental " for all the rebels this 
 side of the Old Harry, until after we had " seen " a few of them 
 In fact, we were really anxious to get " mixed in " with a lot of 
 them — with a mental reservation, however, that we should at all 
 times " come out on top." But we digress. 
 
 After having been out on several rather " scary " expeditions, 
 without anything very frightful having been encountered, we 
 were told one evening by the orderly sergeant to make ready at 
 once for duty on the outer picket-line that was to be posted far 
 toward the front that night. It was, as nearly as we could 
 judge from the quiet movements going on in the preparation of 
 the squad — w^hich was being selected from the several companies 
 of the regiment — to be a sort of secret line that was to be thrown 
 out in the direction of the enemy, and w^e felt sure there was a 
 good show for some right good soldiering ere another morning 
 came. 
 
 Just as the shades of evening were thickening, and the fires of 
 the camp began to glow in the twilight, "we fell into line," and 
 found our squad was a large one — numbering eighty or a hun- 
 dred men. As the proportion of men that had been selected 
 from our company formed as the center squad of the line, we 
 cast our eye along, and saw by the merest glance that it was com- 
 posed of " boys " who went to Dixie with "business" in their 
 eye. To still further convince us that there was no fooling, we 
 noticed that the comander appointed over us was "the French 
 Lieutenant," or, as the regiment was wont to call him, "The 
 Walking Arsenal." He was a tall, wiry six-footer, lean, wrinkled, 
 and battle-scarred from head to foot. The boys used to declare 
 that he wouldn't weigh more than fifty pounds, if he didn't 
 have more than a hundred pounds of lead in his body. He had 
 served many years in the French army, and had probably seen 
 as much or more of the war side of soldiering as any man in the 
 Union army, east or west. He was the most terrible disciplinar- 
 ian that any army could produce; his company was the best 
 drilled of any, and his men had been " put through " so long and 
 so persistently in all the double-quick and running portion of the 
 tactics, the awful boyonet exercises, etc., that they, like himself. 
 
92 Sketches of the West. 
 
 looked more like a company of tongs, than well-proportioned men 
 — they had absolutely been "soldiered to death," or until they 
 were so wiry and tough, that you could tie any of them into a 
 double-bow knot, almost. His bearing was that of a perfect 
 soldier, and no one ever saw him, either on or off duty, when he 
 did not move like a perfect military machine; he never smiled, 
 and when in the discharge of his duty his movements were a 
 marvel to behold, and he seemed to be filled with the spirits of a 
 hundred military heroes combined. While his accent was ex- 
 ceedingly broken, the commands he gave were easily understood, 
 so emphatic and fiery was his style of giving them — a perfect 
 warrior, never happy save when at war. 
 
 When all was ready the lieutenant gave the order, "rat fac'! 
 fiP lef, marsh! " This direction faced us to the west, and par- 
 allel with the front of the enemy. Without a word being spoken, 
 we marched in this direction — through field and wood, and over 
 hill and ravine — for a mile or more, when our front was changed 
 to the south, through a rough and broken country — a sort of oak 
 barrens. The evening, for a time, was clear, and by the faint 
 starlight we carefully pursued our way for a distance of about 
 two miles. Suddenly we came to a halt in the middle of a dense 
 strip of timber, and here the lieutenant informed us he was to 
 commence posting his line of pickets; posting one man in a place, 
 running his line east toward and across the railroad, forming a 
 line of outer pickets about two miles in front of our army. Each 
 man was to have his beat, across which he was to allow no one to 
 pass; we should not be relieved during the night, and should be 
 held accountable for the faithful and full performance of our 
 duty, until called in, in the early morning; that if any were cap- 
 tured, the picket making the capture should notify the next ones 
 to him. and while they would each take a half of his beat to 
 guard during his absence, the captor would march his prisoner 
 into camp at the point of the bayonet. This was indeed an extra- 
 ordinary order, and a mode of picket regulations we never exper- 
 ienced before or afterward. Nevertheless, the first duty of a 
 soldier is to obey orders, and we presume that particular squad 
 would have obeyed orders, to the best of their ability, had they 
 been told to "hold the fort" on that beat all winter. It mav 
 
Sketches of the West. 93 
 
 have been picket duty on the French plan, however. 
 
 Posting his first picket at that point, we filed to the left, or 
 east, and our commander stationed his men at regular intervals 
 having a sufiicient number of men to make his line nearly two 
 miles in length, as we judged, extending about the same distance 
 either way from the railroad. Being near the middle of the line, 
 the writer was assigned a beat the easterly end of which rested 
 on the railroad track and the westerly end terminated at an im- 
 mense oak tree, about twenty rods from the track. The railroad 
 at this point crossed, by means of a bridge, a deep cut, at the bot- 
 tom of which was a small brook; our beat ran along down by the 
 margin of the brook, which had a steep, caved-off bank all along, 
 from four to six feet, nearly perpendicular, to the brook; the op- 
 posite or southern bank of the stream was much lower, sloping 
 gently back to a thick growth of low oak bushes, covered with 
 dry leaves — it being in early December, Here we were left alone 
 in our glory, whilst the command passed on, silently and stealth- 
 ily, soon being lost in the faint starlight. 
 
 At last we felt kind of all-overish, like — something after the 
 fashion of an orphan, as it were. It was a lonely " time of day," 
 anyway, and was in one of the loneliest places imaginable, and 
 we were alone ourself , as will be inferred. We looked up at the 
 stars, around upon the barrens, as well as we could, up and down 
 our beat, and then cautiously approached the steep bank of the 
 little brook — which "babbled" just a little — and peered down until 
 as our eyes grew a little used to the light, or rather the dark down 
 there, we could discover the faint glimmer of the clear water. 
 Then, quietly taking our bayonet from its scabbard, we "fixed " 
 it on the persuading end of our musket, carefully examined the 
 cap on the tube, and after being satisfied that we were completely 
 prepared for the business of enforcing the laws of the United 
 States, upon either man or beast, we proceeded to make our first 
 cautious trip over our beat, making a note of the slightest object 
 all along in the vicinity. Having run on the river many a dark 
 night as well as many a light one, we soon figured out the " lay 
 of the land " about us, and had a very accurate idea of the sur- 
 roundings. On our second trip, we discovered at the railroad end 
 of the beat, the next picket, who was on the other side of the 
 
94 Sketches of the West. 
 
 track, though neither of us spoke; we soon, also, met the picket 
 whose beat ended at the big tree on the other side, and we " vis- 
 ited " once for a moment, but soon separated, and him we did not 
 see again. 
 
 About nine o'clock it commenced raining and the rain fell in a 
 torrent, accompanied by the most startling thunder and the most 
 terrible lightning, we had ever heard or seen; even with our heavy 
 army overcoat, we became quite wet, and it was only by the most 
 strenuous efforts that we kept our gun-load from becoming wet. 
 After the storm had passed, we put a fresh cap on the tube to 
 make sure. The ground was flooded with water, and the little 
 brook seemed to be swelling rapidly — we inwardly hoped it would 
 rise six feet at once, and then no rebel spies or other emissaries 
 would attempt to trouble us. The stars came out brightly after 
 the rain, so that a pretty good view could be had for several rods 
 in any direction. 
 
 It might have been midnight when, as we carefully walked, or 
 rather waded up and down our beat, we thought we heard a faint 
 noise, as if some one had stumbled and fallen, some distance away, 
 down the track. We halted, and cocked our ear sharply, for a 
 long time, but could hear nothing more; but so convinced were 
 we that it was a well defined sound, that could not have been 
 made save by a human, that we kept our ear primed, while we 
 noiselessly and slowly walked up and down. After a long time 
 we again caught a sound, as if made by some one approaching up 
 the railroad track, cautiously along on the ties, and thus it 
 proved. 
 
 Nearer and nearer came the cautious tread, until the person, 
 whoever it was, approached the other end of the open railroad 
 bridge; by this time we could distinguish a form, and quietly 
 putting ourself into perfect readiness, we did not take our eyes 
 from the figure. When he reached the bridge he halted, and for 
 a moment or two was evidently estimating whether he had better 
 attempt to follow the narrow board along the center of the track, 
 over the bridge, or go down off the embankment and wade the 
 stream. We are free to confess that we mentally prayed if he de- 
 cided on the latter course, he would go down the bank on the 
 other side and cross the stream on the next soldier's beat — but 
 
Sketches of the West. 95 
 
 he didn't. No; that is why we scribble these "few lines" — he 
 crossed the stream, and attempted to cross the picket line on the 
 beat over which we had been given the special supervision for 
 the night. ^ 
 
 While he proceeded with the utmost caution, as became a sol- 
 dier and a spy — which he doubtless was — it was evident to our 
 mind that he did not expect to encounter a line of Union outposts 
 for some distance further on. 
 
 After abandoning the idea of crossing the bridge, he turned 
 and went back along the track a few rods and then descended the 
 high embankment into the oak thicket, and cautiously, though 
 not altogether noiselessly, approached the brook and our post. 
 We kept silently changing our position to correspond with his 
 advance, and it was soon evident that he knew where the best 
 place to clamber up the steep bank on our side was located. We 
 saw the spot he was aiming for, and opposite this and back a few 
 feet we crouched, ready to " welcome him with bloody hands to 
 a hospitable grave," if that should be the only course left us. 
 Soon he emerged from the brush and came lightly down to the 
 water's edge, where for a moment he halted and cast his eye up 
 and down the stream and around him. Then he deliberately 
 waded in, hip-deep, and by a few steady strides reached the em- 
 bankment. We could see him sufficiently plain to tell that he 
 carried no gun, but when he gathered up his long, brown, slovenly 
 overcoat to keep it from getting wet, we distinctly heard the muf- 
 fled clank of his side arms, which hung from his belt, but fortun- 
 ately for us, probably, underneath his buttoned outside coat, as 
 we afterwards learned. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to assure our readers that in the brief 
 interval he stood at the foot of the bank, all the scenes of our 
 life, and the possibilities of an immediate future, went through 
 our mind with the quickness of a single thought; we well guessed 
 the eharactcr of the man we had to deal with, and we knew there 
 was but one way open to us where we stood any chance to come 
 out first-best: that was to get the advantage of him and then be 
 smart enough to keeji it. 
 
 There we were, not twenty feet apart, he all unconscious of the 
 presence of any man or beast; we, crouched close to the ground. 
 
96 SketcJies of the West. 
 
 barely peering over the edge of the bank, but in a position to rise 
 to a " ctiarge bayonet " in a twinkling — and to bring our bayonet 
 within a foot of the edge of the bank, and close to the breast of the 
 enemy as he came to clamber up the bank. It seemed as though, 
 he must hear our heart as it pounded our sides like a small pile- 
 driver; but as he started toward us, we seemed to be frozen into 
 a sort of rigid coolness; and, in a steady, impetuous tone — just as 
 he straightened up to give the bound over the bank — we com- 
 manded "Halt! " and suiting the action to the word brought our 
 bayonet and the muzzle of our cocked musket within a foot or two 
 of his breast. 
 
 He gave a sudden start, and an exclamation of surprise, as he 
 quickly realized* the position in which he was placed. Almost 
 instantly, however, he steadied up, and coolly, with a voice alto- 
 gether too pleasant and cordial to be honest, exclaimed : 
 
 "Why, good evenin' sir ! You're a good ways from camp, ain't 
 yer? I didn't expect to find soldiers so close to where I live." 
 
 " You can't 'most always tell where you'll find my kind of sol- 
 diers," we replied. " One thing I wan't to tell you, though, and 
 that is, if you make a single move with your hands as if to reach 
 for a pistol or other arm, or attemt to run either toward or from 
 me, I'll blow you into the middle of kingdomcome — do you un- 
 derstand?" 
 
 "Well, yes; I understand; but, ha-ha-ha — I say, friend, yer 
 needn't be dangerous, 'cause I'm a friend to the Yankees — an' 
 I'm all right on the goose, yer know, eh?" 
 
 " Exactly; this miserable country is full of 'friends to the Yank- 
 ees' — only it isn't," we replied; " Climb up here on the bank, but 
 beware of my warning, or you're a dead man." 
 
 " But, yer not goin' to take me prisoner, are you?" he asked. 
 "Why," said he, " I live right down here a mile or so, an' I was 
 just goin' over to Jim Giles' to borrow a little meal of him till I 
 could go to mill — yer ain't goin' to stop me, are ye?" 
 
 He was a very tall, lank, swarthy fellow, about forty years of 
 age as nearly as we could judge; his hair was long, and he had a 
 ponderous whisker which hung in a tangled mass nearly to his 
 waist, and he was altogether a dangerous looking individual. We 
 saw that, because of his overcoat being over his firearms, we had 
 
Sketches of the West. 97 
 
 an advantage of him that we could hold, if we only used suflBcient 
 vigilance. We saw, too, that he realized this, and that the object 
 he hoped to gain by his parleying was to throw^ us off our guard 
 enough to give him a chance to get to his pistols; but having him 
 in our power, and believing we could hold it, we rather consented 
 in our mind to permit him to talk a little, to see what he had to 
 say. We told him, in answer to his last, that we considered it a 
 rather singular time of night to be going to a neighbor's to bor- 
 row meal and that he must consider himself our prisoner, 
 and that he must do our bidding; or, refusing to obey our orders 
 promptly, it would be at his peril. 
 
 "Well, I'll be d — d! " said he; "your the most unaccomodaten- 
 ist feller I ever seed; ain't yer goin' to let me go on about my 
 business, an' not delay me from goin' over to neighbor Giles 
 place?" 
 
 "No, sir! " we replied. " I want you to climb up here without 
 any further words about it, put your hands behind your back, 
 and march ahead of this bayonet and loaded musket into camp; 
 in the morning if you are found to be the pink of innocence, as you 
 claim, you can proceed to your neighbor's place or elsewhere. 
 Come, climb up here! " 
 
 He was a persistent fellow, how^ever, and must have been reck- 
 lessly brave, or he would never have taken the chances he did. 
 His daring, too, confirmed us as to his character; and well w^as 
 he fitted for the business in which he was engaged. After our 
 last order, he made a sort of half -motion, as if to spring up to the 
 level, but then he settled back again, and striking the ground 
 with his clinched fist he declared: 
 
 "See here, my young chap, I'm a peacable* citizen, and I've a 
 right to go where I please; and I just reckon I'm going to go 
 through this line, if I have to go over your dead body — yer can't 
 fool with this chicken, not by a d — d sight; yer hear me? " 
 
 Right at this point your "uncle's" dander began to stand on 
 end; we felt sure the matter had come to a crisis, and the rough 
 customer was not going to surrender without a sanguinary row. 
 The first thought that flashed through our mind was to let him 
 pass; but that cowardly idea could not long be entertained in a 
 heart that prided itself somewhat upon its patriotic impulses and 
 
Sketches of the West. 
 
 soldierly qualities — as ours did at that time. The next thought 
 was to pull the trigger and send him heels-over-head into etemitj^ 
 And yet, while on the very point of ending the matter in this way 
 — which the circumstances seemed to warrant — our heart relented 
 at the idea of shedding blood, until no possible w^ay was left to 
 avoid it. All this and much more passed through our mind in 
 little more than a twinkling, and he had scarcely stopped speak- 
 ing when, in a voice and manner that must have convinced him 
 that the end of "foolishness" had come, we replied: 
 
 " Look here, my dear fellow, I do not wish to shoot you down 
 like a dog, particularly as I have you completely in my power; 
 but I give you one last chance for your life; if you do not obey 
 my every command, now, on the instant that I give it, I shall 
 blow you to pieces as certain as you are now living; now^, then, 
 you know the terms, and you can choose for yourself." 
 
 " Weil," he muttered with a fearful oath, " what do you want 
 me to do first?" 
 
 " I want you to climb up here, swing your hands around back 
 of "you and clasp them, outside your overcoat." 
 
 "All right, here I come, he said, as he nimbly sprang first to 
 the level and then to his feet, slinging his arms behind him and 
 locking his hands as ordered, and with a precision of movement 
 that too well told that he was no stranger to hard military drill. 
 
 "Now," he said reluctantly, " what in h next do yer want yer 
 
 dog to do?" 
 
 "I want you to march steadily along down to the railroad 
 track, then turn north and follow the center of the track until 
 we reach military headquarters, where I shall turn you over to 
 the provost marshal — but, mind you, do not dare to unclasp your 
 hands or move them from their present position. Forward, 
 march! " 
 
 Upon reaching the track we espied the next adjoining picket, 
 who was approaching the railroad end of his beat, and we told 
 him we were leaving our post, and to take charge of it, and then 
 we took up our line of march, with our prisoner a few inches 
 ahead of our bayonet-point. 
 
 "Why," he broke out pretty soon, "these bushes must be 
 chock full o' you 'blue devils,' ain't they?" 
 
Sketches- of the West. 99 
 
 We told him there were a few around those parts. 
 
 "When did yer put out that line of pickets?" he inquired. 
 
 " Well, we put out that line just in time to pick you up, didn't 
 we?" we replied. 
 
 " I reckon yer did," he answered. " That line wasn't out afore 
 tonight, I'll bet yer a coon. I never was so much surprised in 
 my life as when I run squar ag'inst you. How far is it in to the 
 Yankee camp?" 
 
 " About two miles and a half." 
 
 Then he quieted down, and did not speak again until we had 
 nearly reached headquarters; though, every little while he would 
 turn his head to see how near that bayonet and cocked gun was 
 to his back. At last he said: 
 
 "I say, partner, yer ain't goin' to march me up to headquar- 
 ters in this shape, like a mad-dog, are yer — let me walk along side 
 of you like a respectable gentleman, now that we are in sight of 
 camp, and be a little decent about it, won't yer?" 
 
 " I am not borrowing much trouble about the ' decency ' or re- 
 spectability of this business," we responded; it is a plain case of 
 duty, and you suit me ever so much better just where you are; so 
 don't give us any more of your suggestions; if I think of any plan 
 that will suit me better, I'll let you know." 
 
 " Well, I reckon you're the most persistentest cuss about hold- 
 ing an advantage when you've got it, that ever seen; but yer can 
 just bet yer boots that yer done the right thing fer yerself when 
 you held onto the advantage that yer got in the start." 
 
 Then he muttered something about being a fool for sticking 
 to the railroad track so long — he might have know they'd a put 
 pickets out further every night, etc. He grew exceedingly ner- 
 vous as we neared our destination, and we felt almost sure at 
 times that he was resolved upon making a break for his liberty. 
 But' by repeating to him occasionally what the certain penalty of 
 such a movement would be, he finally gave up and walked straight 
 for the commandant's headquarters, which were located close to 
 the track. 
 
 We were met by two guards who took charge of the prisoner, 
 until we reported to the marshal, when he was placed in irons, 
 and the next day instead of being permitted to "go over to his 
 
100 Sketches of the West. 
 
 neighbor Giles's to get some meal," he was sent to the military 
 prison at Louisville. 
 
 The marshal ordered us to return to our beat, and as we wend- 
 ed our way back, we felt as though our clothes had somehow got 
 too big for us, as we began to shrink down from the high pitch of 
 excitement the taking of our first prisoner had caused us; and 
 all the next day we felt as though we had been squeezed through 
 a clothes-wringer, or been enjoying a long run of nightmare. 
 
 
THE OLD SETTLER. 
 
 EVERY community is blessed with its " old settler" — the old 
 chap who can tell you how many deer and bear he has killed 
 " not twenty rods from where your house now stands." He 
 delights to tell how many hard days' work he did with only three 
 small potatoes and a roasted chipmonk to eat; and who was the 
 first baby born in the town, and how they sent for him to pre- 
 side, because he happened to be the only man in the region who 
 knew what was good for babies. He walks around among the 
 modern settlers with all the airs possible for an original "devel- 
 oper" and carries the conviction to every heart that he, the old 
 settler, is ever so much more than an everlastingly " wise injun." 
 He can kick a neighbor's dog clear across the street, and it's all 
 right; because he is the " old settler," and emphatically the priv- 
 eleged character. When he comes into a town meeting, every- 
 body, for a moment, dries up, and grabs onto a more respectful 
 run of sentences, and when they presume to advance an idea they 
 involuntarily turn and address the old settler in the hope that he 
 may nod an approving smile, or smile an approving nod; if they 
 get it, they laugh right out; if his countenance clouds over, then 
 the speaker very quickly sits down, leaving an impression that he 
 "didn't say anything, nohow," and didn't try to. An "old set- 
 tler " can tell one story over more times, successfully, than any- 
 body else. He has but a small stock, generally, because a story 
 without himself as the hero, isn't any story at all; and in order 
 to be plausible, he dare not hero himself too often for fear it 
 might get what this age terms "thin." Even the naked truth 
 gets thin enough after you have listened to it four or five thou- 
 
102 Sketches of the West. 
 
 sand times. There will be a terrible vacancy in our western com- 
 munities when all the first settlers die; there will be a happy 
 lonesomeness prevailing for a long time, but after awile it would 
 seem sort of good to have them come back again — just to 
 get off that story once more; it would seem so old-fashioned, like. 
 The "old settler" is happy, because he knows if it hadn't been 
 for him the country would never have developed; hence, he can 
 afford to be arrogant, uncivil, and imagine himself a real actual- 
 ity, and everybody else mere accidentals. He nearly always says 
 "no " to every progressive movement, because it shows he has a 
 mind of his own, that he is the only man who ^^ knows to the con- 
 trary," and besides he wants things kept just as near the "good 
 old way " as possible. All in all, the "old settler " is an eccentric 
 old gimlet, and aside from keeping up a perfectly freezing dignity, 
 and being perfectly harmless, is of about as much public use, as 
 a bull is a private success in a china shop. 
 
 
GATHERING WILD-CATS. 
 
 LAST winter it was the wolves that annoyed our good people 
 who lived in the suburbs of the city, and along the bluff and 
 ravine ranges in rear of the town — up and down the valley. 
 We made a raid upon the wolves, however, and abated the 
 nuisance. This winter, a streak of wild-cats seem to be on. A 
 few days ago we began to feel it a duty we owed to posterity, to 
 change the wild-cat condition of things: and so, we hired a cheap 
 boy — a regular baked-mud specimen of street urchin, who had 
 long since become a stranger to fear, and to soap — and started 
 for the hills. We always have use for such a boy when we go out 
 to gather wild-cats. We promised him that if he would go along 
 and carry the cats, and do all that we required of him on the trip, 
 and would skin the cats and dry the hides after we got home, he 
 would be entitled to one-third interest in the peltry. 
 
 We reached a rocky ridge early, and just about the time the 
 varmints had gotten comfortably settled in their holes after their 
 night's raid on the hen-roosts of the neighborhood. It was not 
 long before we found a hole in the rocks accompanied by what 
 we considered infallible signs of the presence of cats, and we at 
 once prepared to clear that hole of its occupant or occupants as 
 the number of cats therein might indicate, and we told the boy 
 to button up his coat and prepare to go in on a tour of inspection 
 whilst we would remain outside and just above the hole, and 
 " polish them off " when they came out, with our long-handled 
 tomahawk. 
 
 The boy, although he was probably dead to fear, seemed to 
 retain a slight smattering of good judgment, though his appear- 
 
104 Sketches of the West. 
 
 ance didn't seem to indicate that he possessed the slighest dis- 
 crimination between a proper and an improper proposition. 
 
 He looked into the hole' turned and looked at the " signs," and 
 then at us, and said: " See here, boss, what do you take me fur, 
 anyway? " We told him we took him " fur " to go into holes to 
 drive out the animals; that if we had taken him along just for an 
 ornament, we wouldn't have agreed to pay him such an immense 
 margin of profits; that a one-third interest in the net proceeds of 
 a wild-cat hunt, when we let ourself loose, was not to be sneezed 
 at. . He looked down into the hole again, and then asked about 
 how much his share would amount to; and we informed him that 
 it depended altogether upon how he panned out as a "driver" 
 — that if he drove enough cats under our weapon, there wasn't 
 any telling how many hundred dollars it would figure up. Then 
 he wanted to know the best way to drive them out; and we told 
 him to go in feet foremost and allow the cats to ' ' shut down ' ' on 
 his pant-legs, or on his coat-tail, and then to come out with his 
 game — let them drive him out; if they didn't bite, then he was to 
 drive them out. He said he would go into that one hole, just to 
 show us he wasn't afraid of wild-cats, but if he didn't bring out 
 a hundred dollars worth of cats the first pass, he would quit and 
 go home — 'cause it was worth that much to go into a hole where 
 "signs" wuz so fresh. 
 
 Pulling his old hat over his ears and drawing his head down 
 inside his coat-collar, he backed down into the hole, and soon was 
 out of sight, whilst we squared ourself just one side of the mouth, 
 with tomahawk raised and muscle swollen up like a hickory -nut. 
 
 "How goes it. Si?" we yelled down the hole. 
 
 " I'm a gittin' 'im!" he yelled back, " He's snappin' at me now, 
 an' — an' oh, lordy — look out, I'm a comin'— he, whoop! — wah! — 
 phew — ew — here we come, dod-rot us!" 
 
 Just at that Si came rolling and tumbling up out of the hole, 
 and, sticking tightly to the broadest part of his dilapidated 
 breeches was the cat; we went for him with our tomahawk at the 
 first glimpse we caught of him, and then — oh, shades of the 
 stately cedar! The cat commenced to defend his position, after 
 the true fashion of his race, and quickly did we receive his copi- 
 ous and unerring shafts. Great guns and little fishes! Before we 
 
Sketches of the West. 105 
 
 could reach a place of safet)^, or a place where we could lie down 
 and roll in the mud and hate ourself to death, we had become a 
 walking pest-house. Si had brought out the wrong kind of a cat. 
 Si had rolled clear to the foot of the hill, whilst we turned a som- 
 ersault over a precipice fifteen feet high, and struck in a friendly 
 mud-hole — but even that beat a skunk-hole all to death. We put 
 ourself to soak over night in a solutian of weak lye and ammonia, 
 and the next day made out to appear as usual, but everybody 
 wanted to know why we looked so " bleached out." Poor Si, we 
 haven't seen him since: but we feel sure he is satisfied without 
 calling on us for a further share of the dividends of our wild-cat 
 hunt. 
 
 
University of 
 Connecticut 
 
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