Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast

[Illustration: YOSEMITE FALLS.]

Across America:

Or

The Great West

And

The Pacific Coast.

BY JAMES F. RUSLING, _Late Brevet Brigadier-General, U. S. V._

[Illustration]

New York: Sheldon & Company. 1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by JAMES F. RUSLING, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Preface.

In the summer of 1866, having lately concluded a tour of inspection through the West and South, and awaiting orders in Washington, it was my fortune one morning to receive the following:

"QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE, } "WASHINGTON, D. C., _July_ 10, 1866. }

"GENERAL:--You will immediately enter upon a tour of inspection of the affairs of the Quartermaster's Department, as administered at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and thence west _via_ Denver City and Salt Lake City to the Pacific Coast, inspecting all intermediate Posts while _en route_. At Denver City you will confer with Brevet Col. Howard, A. Q. M., as to the practicability of breaking up that depot, and removing the stores to other points where needed. Thence to Salt Lake City, where a rigid inspection is needed. Thence to San Francisco, Cal.

"Upon reaching the Pacific Coast, you will confer with the Commanding General and Chief Quartermaster of the Military Division of the Pacific, and having procured necessary information relative to the locality, importance, etc. of the various Posts, you will proceed upon a careful inspection throughout California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington and Arizona Territories. Upon completing this duty, you will return to this city, _via_ the Isthmus, and report in person to the Quartermaster-General.

"It will be necessary to keep this Office fully informed, in advance, as to your probable whereabouts, so that instructions may be telegraphed to you at the stations where you are on duty when necessary.

"You are authorized to take a clerk with you.

* * * * *

"Very respectfully, "Your ob't serv't., "M. C. MEIGS, "_Quartermaster-General_, } "_Brevet Maj.-Gen., U. S. A._" }

"_Brevet Brig.-Gen. James F. Rusling_, } "_Inspector Q. M. Dep't._" }

These, my orders, were subsequently endorsed as follows:

"HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, } "WASHINGTON, D. C., _July_ 18, 1866. }

"Commanding officers will, on the requisition of Gen. Rusling, furnish the necessary escorts to enable him to make the within directed inspections.

"By command of Lieut.-Gen. Grant, "GEO. K. LEET, "_Ass't. Adj't.-Gen._"

The general object of this tour, perhaps I should explain, in a word, was to examine into the condition of our various depots and posts West, and consider their bases and routes of supply, with a view to reducing if possible the enormous expenditures, that then everywhere prevailed there. How well or ill _this_ was accomplished, it is not for me to say, nor is this volume the place--my Reports at the time speaking for themselves.[1]

The route thus roughly indicated was long, and in parts reputed dangerous; but for years I had cherished a desire to see something of that vast region in the sunset, and here at length was the golden opportunity. I need scarcely say, therefore, that I obeyed my orders with alacrity, and in the execution of them was absent in all about a twelvemonth. During that period, crossing the continent to San Francisco, among the Mountains, along the Pacific Coast, and thence home by the Isthmus, I travelled in all over 15,000 miles, as per accompanying Map; of which about 2,000 were by railroad, 2,000 by stage-coach, 3,000 by ambulance or on horseback, and the remainder by steamer. This book, now, is the rough record of it all, written at odd hours since, as occasion offered. Much of this journey, of course, was over the old travelled routes, so well described already by Bowles, Richardson, Nordhoff, and others. But several hundred miles of it, along and among the Rocky Mountains, a thousand or so through Utah and Idaho, and perhaps two thousand or more through Southern California and Arizona, were through regions that most overland travellers never see; and here, at least, I trust something was gleaned of interest and profit to the general reader. Moreover, my official orders gave me access to points not always to be reached, and to sources of information not usually open; so that it was my duty, as well as pleasure, to see and hear as much of the Great West and the Pacific Coast everywhere, as seemed practicable in such a period.

Of course, I kept a rough diary and journal (apart from my official Reports), and retiring from the army in 1867, perhaps these should have been written out for publication long ago, if at all. But it proved no easy task to settle down again into the harness of civil life, after being six years in the army, as all "old soldiers" at least well know. I plead only this excuse for my delay--the absorption of a busy life and health not firm; and trust these notes on Western life and scenery, if lacking somewhat in immediate freshness, will yet be considered not altogether stale. The completion of the Pacific Rail road, it will be noted, made this long tour of mine, by stage-coach and ambulance, through the Great West and along the Pacific Coast, about the last, if not _the_ last, of its kind possible; and, therefore, under all the circumstances, it has seemed not unfitting, even at this late date, to give these pages to the world.

Writing only for the general public, it will be noticed, I have tried everywhere to avoid all military and official details, as far as practicable, and to confine myself mainly to what would seem of interest, if not value, to everybody. So, too, I have aimed to bridge the interval from 1866-7 to 1874 by such additional facts as appeared necessary; but without, however, modifying my own observations and experiences materially. If some persons, and some localities, are spoken of more flatteringly (or less) than usual, it is at least with truthfulness and candor, as things seemed to me. No doubt errors of fact have been committed, but these were not intended; and some of these, of course, were simply unavoidable in a book like this. So, too, as to style, no pretension whatever is made; but I claim merely an honest endeavor to convey some useful, if not interesting information _currente calamo_, in the readiest way possible, and a generous public will forgive much accordingly.

In brief, if what is here roughly said will lead any American to a better love of his country, or to a truer pride in it, or any foreigner to a kindlier appreciation of the Republic, verily I have my reward.

J. F. R.

_Trenton, N. J., March, 15, 1874._

Footnote:

[1] Mostly published by Congress in 1867-8, and among the Pub. Docs. for those years.

Contents.

Chapter I.

_New York to Fort Riley, Kansas._

Across America.--Off July 24, 1866.--West by Erie Railroad.--The Great West.--Northern New Jersey.--Western New York.--Ohio.--Miami Valley.--Indiana and Illinois.--Buckeye _vs._ Hoosier and Sucker.--Cincinnati and St. Louis _vs._ Chicago.--St. Louis _redivivus_.--Missouri.--Her Germans and Vineyards.--The Missouri River.--Leavenworth.--Lawrence and Topeka.--Valley of the Kansas.--Junction City.--Kansas Generally.--Her fine Building-stone.--Her Scenery.--Her Enterprise and Thrift.--"Fall Leaf" and the Delawares.--A Big Chief and his Exploits.--The Pottawatomies.--Returning from a Buffalo Hunt.--The Indian in Kansas. 21-32

Chapter II.

_From the Kansas to the Platte._

_Compagnons du Voyage._--Afloat on the Plains.--Travelling by Ambulance.--Camping-out.--Outfit and Escort.--The "divides."--The Platte itself.--The Grasshoppers.--Prairie-chickens and other Game.--Prairie Dogs.--A Happy Family.--The Little Blue.--The Pawnees and Indian rumors generally.--Virginia Station and Big Sandy.--The Settlers _en route_.--A Pennsylvania Dutchman Westernized.--Life on Fancy Creek.--Rev. Mr. Silvers of Wild Cat Creek.--A Pioneer Missionary. 33-39

Chapter III.

_Up the Platte to Denver._

The Union Pacific Railroad.--The Overland Stage Company.--Mr. Ben Holladay.--An Enterprising Missourian.--Concord Coaches and Teams.--Stage Stations.--Meals _en route_.--The Drivers generally.--Fellow-passengers.--Col. B., an ex-Lieut.-Governor turned Sutler.--A Swiss Artist.--A Doctor of Divinity.--A New York Banker and his Patriotic Wife.--The Weather.--Life on a Stage-Coach, outside Day and Night.--The Scenery generally.--Magnificent Sunsets.--A particularly fine one. 40-46

Chapter IV.

_Up the Platte to Denver_ (concluded).

The Platte Valley in general.--Its Features and Resources.--The Platte River itself.--The Cañon Cedars.--Want of Timber.--Costly Fuel, Grain, etc. at Fort Sedgwick.--Scenery of the Plains generally.--Buffalo and their Range.--A Ride after Antelope.--Lost on the Plains.--Buffalo Trails.--The Settlers generally.--Kearney City, Julesburg, etc.--The Ranches.--Fort Wicked.--Wagon-trains.--Prairie Schooners.--Bull-drivers.--Sioux Indians.--"Big Injun" stories generally. 47-57

Chapter V.

_Denver and the Mines._

Denver itself.--A Mountain City.--Her Growth and Enterprise.--Judge Gale and her Gamblers.--Bishop Randall.--Her want of Trees and Shrubbery.--Metropolis of Colorado.--Gov. Cumming.--Hints of Judge Lynch.--Reception of Gen. Sherman and Brother.--Golden City.--The Snowy Range.--Central City.--Its Population and Pluck.--Placer Mining.--Quartz Lodes.--Gregory Mine.--A Good Superintendent _vs._ a Poor One.--Colorado Ores in general.--A new "process" wanted.--Watered Stock Companies.--"Freezing Out."--Mining Statistics.--The Coming Mineralogist.--Idaho City.--The Saratoga of Colorado.--Georgetown and Mill City.--Clear Creek and ride back to Denver.--Miners Slang.--"You Bet." 58-74

Chapter VI.

_Among the Mountains._

First View of Rocky Mountains.--Above and Across them to Fort Garland.--Rumors of Indians.--A Stormy Divide.--"Dirty Woman's Ranch."--Castle Rock.--Buttes.--Monument Creek.--Garden of the Gods.--Pike's Peak.--Soda Springs.--Colorado City.--Cañon City.--_Fontaine qui Bouilli._--Irrigation.--Pueblo.--The Arkansas, Greenhorn, and Huerfano, and their Valleys.--Mexican Laborers.--Hincklin's Ranch.--Sangre del Christo Pass.--Views from Summit.--Descent into San Luis Park.--Sangre del Christo Creek.--A Mule-back Ride.--Trout Fishing.--Snow-squalls and a Cold "Camp."--Mexicans and Bronchos,--Culebra.--A Mexican Baille.--Don Jesus.--A Dancing People. 75-93

Chapter VII.

_Among the Mountains_ (continued).

The Parks of the Rocky Mountains.--San Luis Park particularly.--The Backbone of the Continent.--The Rio Grande and its Bottoms.--Fine Trout-streams.--Snow Squalls.--Sierra Blanca.--Russell's Ranch.--Good Specimen of a Colorado Pioneer.--Homan's Park.--Kerber's Ranch.--A Dairy in the Heart of the Rocky Mountains.--Hospitable Germans.--Camping-out on the Summit.--Poncho Pass and Creek.--Absence of Game.--A Bad Road.--The Arkansas again.--South Park.--Leutze's Painting in the Capitol.--Mexican _vs._ Yankee.--Salt Works.--Duck Shooting.--Fair Play.--South Platte.--Placer Mining.--Buckskin Joe.--Judge Costello and his Hotel.--The Newspapers again.--Elections of 1866.--Rocky Mountain Eagle.--Down the South Platte.--A Good Road.--Bradford's Hill.--The Plains again.--The Mule Kate.--A Gold and Silver Mining Company.--A Little Fun! 95-113

Chapter VIII.

_The Indians--Gen. Sherman--Kit Carson, etc._

Sherman and Utes in Council at Fort Garland.--Sherman and the Arrapahoes.--Gov. Cumming and Ute Treaty.--Indian Ponies.--Ute Costumes.--Ute Village.--Boy Braves.--Indian Dogs.--Indian Profanity.--Lost at Night among them.--Something of an Adventure.--A Scary Situation.--Wellington.--The Treaty itself.--Ooray.--Ancantash.--Shauno.--Speech of Gov. Cumming.--Kit Carson as Interpreter.--Ooray's Cute Replies.--Indian Presents.--"Swopping."--Jack Cox.--Ute Dance by Moonlight on the banks of the Rio Grande.--Ute Squaws.--The Average Indian.--Kit Carson.--His Personal Appearance and Character.--His Life and Adventures.--Kit on Fremont.--Sherman on Kit Carson.--Kit on the Indian Question.--The Chivington Massacre, etc.--Sherman's Opinion of New Mexico, etc.--Sumner's Ditto.--Sherman as a Talker and Smoker. 114-142

Chapter IX.

_Denver to Salt Lake._

Rocky Mountains from Denver.--Off for the Pacific.--Mountain Mud-wagons.--Laporte.--Gen. Dodge.--The Foot-hills.--Virginia Dale.--Miners going East to Winter.--Willow Spring.--An Indian Scare.--Stampedes.--Old Fort Halleck.--Laramie Plains.--North Platte and Valley.--Bridger's Pass.--Across the Summit.--Sulphur Springs.--Bitter Creek Country.--Alkali Region.--A _Delirium Tremens_ Passenger.--A Square Meal at Laclede.--A Driver's Opinion of Bitter Creek.--Green River.--Church Butte.--Rocky Mountain Stories.--Stage-coaching Philosophically Considered.--Something about Smoking.--A Mustang Team and a Runaway.--Fort Bridger and Judge Carter.--Sage-hens.--Marmion and the Bible in a Cabin.--Echo Cañon.--Mormon Campaign, 1857-8.--Weber Valley.--Mormons.--Parley's Cañon.--Salt Lake City.--A Hearty Sleep. 143-163

Chapter X.

_At Salt Lake City._

Salt Lake House.--Beauty of the City.--Rasselas' Happy Valley.--A Sunday at the Tabernacle.--A Mormon Missionary.--Their Sacrament.--George Q. Cannon and his Address.--Exercises generally.--Mountain Fever.--Hot Sulphur Springs.--City-wall.--Mormon Militia Muster.--The Review--Their Lieutenant-General Commanding and Brigadier-Generals.--A Dubious if not Menacing Military Body.--Interview with Brigham Young.--A Talk about Southern Utah.--He "Disremembers" rather Suspiciously.--His Views on Religion, Polygamy, Utah, etc.--His Personal Appearance and Character.--Mormon Theatre.--Brigham and his Family Present.--General Audience.--Polygamy and its Effects. 164-182

Chapter XI.

_Mormon Outrages--Polygamy, etc._

Previous Impressions.--A Recent Outrage.--Dr. Robinson's Case.--Proceedings in the U. S. District Court.--An Atrocious Murder.--The Church Implicated.--A Vigilance Committee Proposed.--Shrewdness of Brigham Young.--His Telegram to Sherman.--It Paid the Saints.--The Logical Fruit of Mormonism.--Bad Teachings of Leaders.--Gentiles _vs._ Mormons.--Remarkable Statements of a U. S. Judge.--He Believes in Thugs and Danites.--His Views of Dr. Robinson's Case.--Mormon Juries.--Brassfield's Case.--The Mountain Meadow Massacre.--Brigham Young Responsible.--Andrew Johnson on Utah.--Growth of Polygamy.--Its Practical Workings.--A Second Wife on the Rampage.--Polygamous Children.--No Free Schools.--Foulness of Polygamy.--The Jury Trouble again.--Judge ----'s Remedy.--U. S. Troops essential there.--Pacific Railroad unlikely to solve the Problem soon.--Brigham Young's Successor.--His Cowardice Personally.--A Brave Official.--The High Council of the Church overrules Federal Decisions, etc. 183-198

Chapter XII.

_Mormonism in General._

Mormon Industry and Thrift.--Their System of Irrigation.--Small Farms.--Good Homes.--No Drunkenness or Gambling.--Salt Lake City again.--Mormonism itself.--A Colonization Scheme, rather than Religion.--The Bishops Sharp Business Men.--The Tendency of Mormon Teachings.--Mormon Disloyalty.--Mormon Women.--Polygamy an Insult to Civilization.--A Crime against Humanity.--It should be Stamped Out, _sans_ Ceremony, and Instanter. 199-205

Chapter XIII.

_Salt Lake to Boisè City._

Ben Holliday again.--His Great Stage Lines.--Wells, Fargo & Co.--Profits and Losses.--His Appearance and Character.--Off for the Columbia.--Great Salt Lake.--Brigham Young's Islands and Cañons.--Hot Springs.--Ogden City.--Bishop West.--Joseph Young.--Brigham City.--A Ute Brave.--Ute Squaws.--Brigham Young's Indian Policy.--Bear River.--The Country generally.--Bad Water.--Malàde Station.--Indians and Wolves.--Snake River.--Subterranean Stream and Cascade.--Great American Falls.--Barren Country.--Valley of the Boisè.--The Ride generally.--Square Meals.--Mr. Superintendent Halsey.--A Live Man. 206-222

Chapter XIV.

_Boisè City to the Columbia._

Idaho.--Boisè City.--Miners.--Saloons.--Specie and "Dust" _vs._ Greenbacks.--John Chinaman.--An Idaho Dogberry _vs._ Judge Lynch.--Idaho generally.--Fort Boisè.--A Lucky Paymaster.--"Swinging Round the Circle."--Off for the Columbia.--Burnt River and Powder River and their Valleys.--Snake River again.--Farewell Bend.--Steamboating on the Snake.--Bituminous Coal.--Oregon.--Baker City.--Grand Ronde Valley.--Le Grande.--Crossing the Blue Mountains.--Mules _vs._ Horses.--Le Grande River.--Scenery.--A Corkscrew Road.--"Jordan a Hard Road to Travel."--Freight Trains and Teamsters.--Some "Horse" Philosophy.--Bull-whackers as a Class.--Ox-teams.--A Hard Pull.--Break-downs.--"Meacham's."--A Live Oregonian.--Pikes and Confederates.--Caught in a Snow Storm.--A Fine View.--"Crawfords."--"Well's Springs."--A Sick Horse.--Umatilla River.--Indian Reservation.--Fine Water-power--John Wilful.--A Specimen Idahoan.--Good-bye to Stage-coaching, etc. 223-249

Chapter XV.

_Down the Columbia._

Umatilla.--Indians.--A Mr. Micawber.--Steamboats.--Capt. Stump.--Oregon Steam Navigation Company.--The Columbia and its Tributaries.--Indians.--"Calico" Horses.--Celilo.--Railroad Portages.--Shooting the Rapids in a Steamboat.--The Dalles.--Upper Cascades.--Lower Cascades.--Wild and Picturesque River Scenery.--Cascade Mountains.--Cañon of the Columbia.--Castle Rock.--Mount Hood.--Hood from the Columbia.--Quick Changes of Climate.--Coast Region and Rains.--Fellow-passengers. 250-260

Chapter XVI.

_Fort Vancouver to San Francisco._

Vancouver.--Gen. Steele.--About Sherman.--The Truth as to Grant's Vicksburg Campaign.--A True Army Bachelor.--Isothermal Lines.--Superb Hood again.--Portland.--Her Enterprise and Importance.--Yankee Doodle _vs._ John Bull.--Puget Sound.--Oregonians generally.--John Chinaman.--His Good Qualities.--Off for San Francisco by Steamer.--Mountain Views from Mouth of Willamette.--Jefferson, Hood, Adams, and St. Helen's.--Astoria.--Rain and Fog.--Bar of the Columbia.--Fort Stevens and Cape Disappointment.--Crossing the Bar.--The Oriflamme and Capt. Conner.--Sea Sickness.--Bad Weather.--A Rough Voyage.--Off 'Frisco.--All hail, the Golden Gate! 261-275

Chapter XVII.

_San Francisco._

Her Position Geographically.--Her Great Bay.--Location of City faulty.--Her Sand-hills.--Her Sea-wall.--Her Great Commerce.--Some Statistics.--The View from Telegraph Hill.--Her Progress and Energy.--Bad Climate.--Her Rainy Winters.--Her Earthquakes.--Her Raw Summers.--Montgomery Street.--Her Public Buildings.--Private Residences.--Flower Gardens.--Wind-mills.--The Representative Californian.--Montgomery Street Dames.--Her Sabbaths.--Jewish Synagogue.--Starr King's Church.--Other Churches.--Society generally. 276-289

Chapter XVIII.

_San Francisco_ (continued).

Greenbacks _vs._ Gold and Silver.--General Prices.--Loyalty of the Coast.--Anxious for Alaska.--Christmas and New Year's.--Lucky Army Officers.--Adventure on the Bay.--Oakland.--Cliff House and Sea Lions.--"Ben Butler" and "Gen. Grant."--Fine Ride.--Ups and Downs of California Life.--Eccentric Oscar H.--Things Improving. 290-299

Chapter XIX.

_San Francisco_ (concluded).

The Heathen Chinee.--Their Numbers, Costumes, Habits, etc.--Eager to Learn Melican Ways.--Pigeon English.--Grand Banquet.--Their Graceful Manners.--Their Great Companies.--Their Talent for Organization and Business.--They run the Mission Mills and build the Pacific Railroad.--An Evening in the Chinese Quarter.--Their Theatre and Orchestra.--A Lottery Office.--The Barbary Coast.--An Augean Stable.--Their Gambling Houses.--Chinese New Year.--Their Hospitality and Politeness.--Good Bankrupt Law.--Their Josh-Houses and Religion.--The Chinese Problem generally.--Good Chance for Missionary Work.--_Fiat Justitia._ 300-321

Chapter XX.

_San Francisco to Los Angelos._

Off for Los Angelos.--A Race with the _Golden Age_.--A Pacific Sea.--Coast Scenes.--Santa Barbara.--Spanish Missions.--San Pedro.--San Diego.--Her Harbor.--John Phœnix.--A Deserted Village.--The County Jail.--Climate.--Business.--Whale-fishing.--San Pedro again.--Wilmington.--Gen. Banning.--A Representative Californian.--The Village Barber--The Los Angelos Plains.--Rancheros.--Wild Geese, etc.--Acequias.--Los Angelos and its Suburbs.--Population.--Climate.--Sundays.--Vineyards.--"Don Benito" Wilson.--His Noble Ranch.--His Orange Groves, Vineyards, Wine-cellars, etc.--Cheap Lands. 322-338

Chapter XXI.

_Wilmington to Fort Yuma._

Outfit.--Getting Off.--Anaheim.--German Enterprise.--Santa Anna River.--Laguna Grande.--A Spanish Hacienda.--Buena Vista.--Villacito.--Colorado Desert.--Carissa Creek.--Desolate Landscapes.--Sand Storms.--Mirage.--The Laguna.--Alamo.--Pilot Knob.--The Country generally.--Stage Stations.--Carissa Creek again.--A Stray Texan.--Bill of Fare.--Indians.--A Border Outrage.--Gambling Charley.--Mexican Exiles.--Maximilian.--"Inside" and "Outside." 339-354

Chapter XXII.

_Fort Yuma to Tucson._

Fort Yuma itself.--Arizona City.--Rio Colorado.--Difficult Navigation.--High River Freights.--A Yuma Sand Storm.--The Thermometer at Yuma.--Yuma Indians.--Old Pasquol.--Good Missionary Ground.--Gov. McCormick, etc.--"Outfit."--Off for Tucson.--Gila City.--The Gila itself.--General Scenery.--Gila Bottoms.--Bunch-grass and Mesquite Trees.--Arizona Settlers.--Gila Bend.--Maricopa Desert.--A Dangerous Cañon.--Painted Rocks.--The Country generally.--Big Cactus.--Maricopa and Pimo Indians.--Well-to-do Aborigines--Indian Traders.--Pimo Wigwams.--Our then Indian Policy.--Good Roads.--Sparse Population.--Big Cactus and Bunch-grass.--Picacho and Point of Mountains.--Climate.--Apaches, etc. 355-373

Chapter XXIII.

_Tucson to Prescott._

Tucson.--Misses a "Sensation."--Population.--A Mexican Padre.--High Prices.--The Santa Cruz.--Climate.--Apaches.--Blackbirds.--Rip Van Winkle Town.--Headquarters of Military District.--Route of Supplies.--Libertad and Guaymas Routes.--Copper and Silver Mines.--Church at San Xavier.--Maricopa Wells again.--Freshets in the Gila and Salado.--Col. Crittenden, etc.--An Out-of-the-way Place.--A Fortunate Discovery.--Crossing the Gila.--Brave Louis Heller.--Mules on a Swim.--Crossing the Salado.--Fort McDowell.--Down the Salado.--Among the Apaches.--Poor Cavalry-horses.--A Blind Road.--The Agua Frio.--White Tanks.--A Supperless Night.--Up the Hassayampa.--A Hard Road to Travel.--Arizona Quicksands.--No Hurry for Population or Business.--Roads and Bridges Wanted. 374-389

Chapter XXIV.

_Tuscon to Prescott_ (continued).

Wickenburg.--The Vulture Mine.--A Fine Quartz-mill.--A Valuable Mining Property.--San Francisco Mountains.--Singular Roads.--Skull Valley.--Sparse Population.--Apaches and Yavapais.--Bell's Cañon.--Indian Attacks generally.--The Intervening Country.--Ancient Ruins and Broken Pottery.--A Huge Acequia.--Work for Antiquarians.--Good Bottoms along the Salado and Gila.--A Railroad Much Needed. 390-396

Chapter XXV.

_Prescott, the Apaches, etc._

Prescott.--A New-England-like Village.--An Army Officer's Opinion.--Location, Plan, Buildings, etc.--A Barber's Opinion.--Her Gold and Silver Mines.--Her Quartz-mills Idle.--Mining Operations "Sick."--Her Advantages, however.--Capital of Arizona.--Population of Territory.--The Indians.--The Apaches generally.--Their Brave Exploits.--Good Horse-thieves.--Their Wise Strategy.--Their Captive Children.--A Raid near Prescott.--Their Pursuit to Hell Cañon and beyond.--Gen. Irvin Gregg.--A Fight with the Apaches.--A Dangerous District.--A Typical Emigrant.--Aztec Remains.--A Fine Wild Turkey.--Fort Whipple.--A Costly Post.--An Expensive Flag-staff, etc.--Hail, Cavalry Gregg! 397-408

Chapter XXVI.

_Prescott to Los Angelos._

Off for Los Angelos.--Williamson's Valley.--Wild Game.--Juniper Mountain.--Rock Springs.--Cottonwood Cañon.--Beale's Springs.--A Desolate Country.--Sage-brush and Grease-wood.--Want of Water.--Indians again.--Sublime Scenery.--Union Pass.--Rio Colorado again.--Mojave Indians.--Our Indian Policy then.--Fort Mojave.--A Rude Post.--A Pittsburg Lady "Roughing it" there.--Hardyville--Adjacent Mines.--Mr. Hardy himself.--Costly Transportation the Great Drawback to Arizona.--The Colorado should be Utilized.--Beaver Lake.--A Desert Country again.--Changes of Elevation.--Heat and Rattlesnakes.--Interesting Bed-fellows.--Pai-Ute Hill--A Break-down.--Camp Rock Springs.--Our Frontier Posts generally.--Soda Lake.--A Weary and Anxious Sunday.--An Indian Scare.--Mojave River.--Strange Anomalies in Arizona and Southern California.--A Dismal Ranchman.--Camp Cady.--Cajon Pass.--San Bernardino.--The Los Angelos Plains again.--"Out of the Wilderness."--Back to 'Frisco by Sea. 409-424

Chapter XXVII.

_San Francisco to Virginia City._

Off for Sacramento.--Fellow-passengers.--Children.--Sacramento River.--Sacramento City.--Thence by Railroad.--Country generally.--The Wheat Fields and Live Oaks.--The Foot-hills.--Placer Mining.--Water-ditches.--Hydraulic Mining.--Changes in Climate.--Central Pacific Railroad.--Cisco.--The Sierra Nevadas.--Deep Snows still, May 17th.--Snow-sheds.--John Chinaman again.--Donner Lake.--The Truckee.--The Geiger Grade.--Sunday in Nevada.--A Noted Revivalist.--Virginia City.--The Comstock Lode.--Silver Mining generally.--The Sutro Tunnel.--Mining a Risky Business. 425-436

Chapter XXVIII.

_Virginia City to Stockton._

Return by Placerville.--Carson City.--Carson River and Valley.--The Sierras again.--Mountain Turnpikes.--A Rough Night's Travel.--Crossing the Summit.--An Ambitious Mother and her Florence Mary.--A Morning Ride.--Lake Tahoe.--Splendid Stage-driving.--Placerville.--Sacramento City again.--California's Wealth of Roses, etc.--Country to Stockton.--Live Oaks.--Wheat-fields.--Vineyards.--Flocks and Herds.--Wind-mills.--Stockton itself. 437-442

Chapter XXIX.

_Stockton to the Yosemite._

Off for the Yo-sem-i-te.--Wheat-fields again.--The Stanislaus and Tuolomne.--The Coast Range.--Coulterville.--A Horseback Ride.--Mustang Pony.--My Guide.--Bower Cave.--"Black's."--A Romantic Trail.--Up and Over the Sierras.--Floundering through the Snows.--First View of the Yosemite.--Fording Mountain Torrents.--Descent into the Valley.--"Hutchings'."--A Ramble through the Yosemite.--A Fissure in the Sierras.--Its Lofty Walls.--Snowbanks above; Strawberries below.--Waterfalls.--Bridal Veil Fall.--El Capitan.--Yosemite Fall.--Merced River.--The Lake and Domes.--South Fork.--Prof. Whitney and Party.--The Cascades.--Vernal Fall.--Rainbows.--Nevada Fall.--Mt. Broderick.--Sentinel Peak.--Cathedral Rocks.--The Valley generally. 443-455

Chapter XXX.

_The Yosemite to San Francisco._

Prof. Whitney again.--The Mariposa Trail.--Inspiration Point.--A Sublime View.--The Hermitage.--The Snow again.--A Grizzly Bear and Cubs.--The Sugar Pines.--The South Merced.--"Clerk's."--Galen Clark himself.--Mariposa Big Trees.--Grizzly Giant, etc.--The Species generally.--California's Duty.--Mariposa.--A Sleepy Town.--Honitos.--Bear Valley.--The Coast Range and Mt. Diabolo.--Stockton again.--Back to San Francisco. 456-465

Chapter XXXI.

_San Francisco to New York._

Ride to San Josè.--Off for New York.--The Weather.--Delightful Voyaging.--The Constitution.--Fellow-passengers.--Cape St. Lucas.--Manzanillo.--Acapulco.--A Mexican Seaport.--"Greasers."--Good Divers.--Sights Ashore.--The Cathedral.--The Old Spanish Fort.--Off for Panama.--Panama itself.--Location.--Business and People.--Railroad to Aspinwall.--Breakdown in a Jungle.--Tropical Scenery.--The Railroad itself.--The Natives.--Aspinwall.--The Rising Star.--New Passengers.--Caribbean Sea.--Cuba.--Gulf Stream.--Sandy Hook.--Home again.--"Adios." 466-477

Appendix 481-492

Index 493

[Illustration: MAP OF UNITED STATES MEXICO & CENTRAL AMERICA TO ILLUSTRATE _RUSLING'S "ACROSS AMERICA"_]

Across America;

Or,

The Great West And The Pacific Coast.

Chapter I.

From New York To Fort Riley, Kansas.

Across America, from New York to San Francisco, may be roughly estimated as three thousand miles. The first third of this occupied us only about three days and three nights, though the whole trip consumed just less than a twelve-month. From New York to St. Louis, _via_ Cincinnati, was our first stage, and of course by railroad. We left New York, Tuesday, July 24, 1866, by the Erie Railway, and on the following Thursday afternoon reached St. Louis in time for a late dinner. Tarrying here a day or two, to pick up some information about the Plains, we passed on to Leavenworth; and thence, after a longer pause to Fort Riley. The Union Pacific Railroad, Eastern Division (or Kansas Pacific, as it is now generally called), halted then at Waumega, some thirty miles from Fort Riley, whence we reached Riley by stage-coach. The coach itself was a lumbering, weather-beaten vehicle, with sorry teams of horses; it was a hot August afternoon, with rolling clouds of dust; we had nine passengers inside and three outside, with freight and baggage everywhere; and altogether this little stage-ride was a good initiation into the mysteries and miseries of stage-coaching across the continent.

From New York to St. Louis is already a series of towns and cities, with the country as a whole well settled up, for America. The Great West, it is soon seen, is no longer the valley of Ohio and the prairies of Illinois. It has long since crossed the Mississippi, and emigrated beyond the Missouri. What used to be called the "West" has already become the centre; and "out west" now means Kansas or Colorado, if anything at all. The Erie road, with its broad-gauge coaches, takes you through the picturesque, as well as rich and fertile regions of northern New Jersey, and western New York, whence the ride through Ohio, down the lovely valley of the Miami to Cincinnati, is substantially as through a garden. Over much of this region, it is plain to be seen, New England has left her mark, never to be effaced. Her school-houses and churches, her intelligence and thrift, are all reproduced (only slightly westernized), and one can see that he is in Yankee-land still at a glance. You might know it, by the omnipresence of white paint and green blinds, if nothing else. You see it in the average inhabitant and detect it in his speech. And yet it is Yankee-land, with enlarged freedom and independence of thought and action, and therefore doubly welcome. Southern Indiana and Illinois, you find rapidly filling up; but they still seem much behind that sunny heart of Ohio, the Miami Valley. Populated largely by the overflow from Kentucky and Tennessee--chiefly the "poor whites" of those former slave states--the results are everywhere unmistakable. Evidently, even to the passing traveller, the average Hoosier or Sucker, as yet, is much behind the average Buckeye, and he will find it a hard task to overtake him. The lineal descendant of the Cavalier and the Corncracker, how can he expect to compete successfully with the regular representative of the Roundhead and the Yankee?

Cincinnati and St. Louis strike you as large and growing cities; but they do not impress you like Chicago, at least as she did before the great fire. They seem to have taken Quaker Philadelphia, as their type and model, rather than buoyant New York. Many of their streets, you find similarly named, and a like atmosphere pervades much of their business. In talking with their magnates of trade and finance, you note a conservative tone, that illy accords with your ideas of the West, and you are inclined to wonder whether the far-famed push and pluck of that romantic region are not myths after all. Buffalo and Toledo, Cleveland and Chicago, however, would soon undeceive you--especially, Chicago. The push and drive, the enterprise and _elan_ of New York, that are reproduced so well along our northern tier of cities, all culminated at Chicago--at least before the fire--until she seemed New York incarnate or even intensified. The metropolis and brain of the northwest, how a day in her busy streets braced and inspired one! With all her brave memories of the past, no wonder she still believes enthusiastically in herself, and even in her ashes doubted not her future!

St. Louis, long her rival in trade, we found just beginning to recover from the benumbing effects of slavery and the rebellion. The rebellion, sealing up her railroads and extinguishing her down-river trade, had given her a bad set back. But she was already fast picking up the broken threads of her commerce, and was again preparing to contend with Chicago for the palm of supremacy. Seated on the Mississippi, with a vast river trade up and down, and an immense region back of her, her geographical position could scarcely be surpassed, and no doubt she has a grand and noble future before her. Her levees, we found, thronged with steamers, some up for New Orleans 1,200 miles south; others for Fort Benton 3,100 miles north and west. Her population already exceeded a quarter of a million. Her suburbs were steadily filling up, in spite of numerous sinkholes in the limestone formation there. Her streets were already well gridironed with horse-railroads. Her facilities for business were large and increasing. And with her vast system of rivers, north to the British Dominion and south to the gulf, and her rapidly developing back country--even to the Rocky Mountains and New Mexico--nature seems to have destined her to become the great and abiding metropolis of all that region. Her vast bridge and tunnels were not yet begun, but she was already prophesying great things for the future.

From St. Louis, three hundred miles through Missouri, to Leavenworth, Kansas, you find a noble region, that needs only a live population to make it a garden. It is mostly rich rolling prairie, but with more timber and streams than in Illinois, and with limestone abounding nearly everywhere. All along the route, it was plain to be seen, Missouri had suffered sadly from slavery. Both in population and business, in town and country, clearly "the trail of the serpent" had been over her all. But the wave of immigration, now that slavery was dead, had already reached her, and we found its healthful currents everywhere overflowing her bottoms and prairies. The new-comers seemed to be largely Yankee and German, almost everywhere. France once so predominant here, was already supplanted by Germany, and the Teuton bade fair to rule Missouri soon, even then. At Hermann, where we stopped for dinner, a German Hebe tendered us excellent native wine, and the culture of the grape, we learned, had already become a leading industry of this section of the state. The sturdy Rhine-men, as true to freedom as in the days of Tacitus, were already everywhere planting vineyards, and in the near future were sure of handsome returns from petty farms, that our old time "Pikes" and "Border Ruffians" would have starved on. Throughout the ride, the Missouri or Big-Muddy, as the Indians call it, was often in sight, a broad tawny stream; and many of its bends and reaches were so beautiful, that it hardly seemed to deserve that savage criticism of Bayard Taylor's, as being "too lazy to wash itself." Its banks as a rule are higher and better, than those of the Mississippi anywhere below Cairo, and its bottom lands seemed unsurpassed in fertility.

Leavenworth, on the Missouri, where it takes a final bend north, was still the entrepôt for New Mexico and the plains. Omaha had already tapped the Colorado and Utah trade and travel, and has since mainly absorbed them, by the completion of the Union Pacific railroad. But Leavenworth still had a large trade and travel of her own, as a point of departure for New Mexico and the Plains, and seemed destined to maintain it. Only a decade or so before, she was without a house or inhabitant; but now she claimed thirty-thousand people, and was rapidly increasing. We found many handsome stores and elegant residences everywhere going up. Her streets were fast being graded and macadamized, and the guttering especially was most solid and substantial. She had several daily papers already, with weekly editions of a large circulation. Many of her stores were doing a wholesale business of a million of dollars annually. A fine Catholic church was being erected, which when completed promised to be the chief ornament of the city. But the largest and showiest building there then was a combined brewery and dance house, which augured badly for the town. Off on the suburbs of the city, we passed a park of wagons or "prairie-schooners," acres in extent, tangible evidence that we had already struck the commerce of the Plains.

By Lawrence and Topeka, already towns of several thousand people, over the historic plains of Kansas, we sped along up the valley of the Kaw or Kansas to Waumega; and thence, as I have said, by stage to Fort Riley. Junction City, just beyond Fort Riley, at the confluence of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers, we found to be a hamlet of several hundred people, and already growing rapidly. It had been projected, with the expectation that the railroad would bend north here, and ascending the Republican go thence to Denver, which would have made Junction the last station and grand depot for all New Mexico and much of the Rocky Mountain region. But, as it had been decided afterwards to keep on up the Smoky Hill instead, Junction had missed of much of its importance. Its location, however, was good, at the confluence thus of two rivers; and with its single street of straggling houses, of all styles of architecture, and in every stage of construction, it was a good specimen of a frontier town, in the first year of its settlement.

The country as a whole, thus far through Kansas, much surpassed our expectations. Not only were the broad bottoms of the Kaw everywhere dotted with farms, but even the high rolling prairies beyond were fast settling up. Of course, settlements grew more scattering the farther we progressed westward; but they were always in sight and everywhere rapidly increasing. Herds of horses and cattle grazed along the bottoms, and grouse and sage-hens whirred up by the roadside as we sped along. At one point, a brace of oxen, yoked together, got upon the track, and our engine mangled the poor beasts dreadfully before they escaped. The road, as yet, was poorly ditched, and without fences on either side, so that horses and cattle strayed across it quite at will. The wheat-crop had everywhere been fair, and Indian corn was promising to be magnificent. Corn had looked well, all through Ohio and Indiana, Illinois and Missouri; but in the Kansas bottoms it was superb in its "embattled glory," and seemed to be a great favorite with the farmers. Indeed, Kansas, both in soil and climate, is a rare state, and well worth to freedom all the blood and treasure she cost us. True she lacks timber; but so far she had got along, and the weight of testimony seemed everywhere to be that her growth of timber improved with the reclamation and settlement of the country. The Indian was everywhere retiring before the pale faces, and the autumnal fires ceasing with his departure, bushes and trees soon appeared, and we heard repeated instances of springs even breaking out, where none had been known before. As an offset to her want of timber, coal had been discovered in many places, and all through the valley of the Kaw, she has a cream-colored limestone in the bluffs, that works up beautifully for building purposes. When first quarried, it is so soft that a common hand-saw or chisel can dress it into any shape desired; but exposure to the atmosphere soon hardens it, and then it continues so. In appearance it resembles the Milwaukee free-stone, that used to make Michigan Avenue, Chicago, so handsome and stately, and as a building material will prove immensely valuable through all Southern Kansas. At Junction City it was being got out by machinery, and fashioned into blocks by horsepower. A company controlled the business, and as they could furnish this elegant stone at a much less cost than lumber or brick, they were anticipating very handsome profits.

The scenery of Kansas possesses many points of interest, but as a whole lacks grandeur and sublimity. The view from Prospect Ridge, back of Leavenworth, up and down the Missouri, is good; but the landscape from Indian Point, near Junction City, up the Smoky Hill, has more scope and variety, and was the finest we saw. Here, and at other points, are some superb specimens of river terraces. We counted four and five separate "benches," as they call them there, or terraces, in many places, and the ancient water-marks of past geologic ages seemed very evident. The rounded appearance of the country generally, cropping out here and there into rough and misshapen ridges, indicated pretty clearly the former water-line, and we often interested ourselves in tracing it for miles.

Kansas, of course, abounds in enterprise and thrift. Saved to freedom by Sharpe's rifles and the Bible, she invested largely in the school-house and the church, and already reaps her fit reward. Her Yankees whittle away just as cutely as they used to in New England, and her Western men spread themselves hugely as elsewhere. Since the war, she had received quite a large accession of population from our ex-officers and soldiers. We found specimens of the Boys in Blue scattered almost everywhere, and usually they were doing well. A fine _esprit du corps_ animated them, and will keep them knit together for the future. At various points we found them just "squatted" on a quarter-section, and with the very rudest surroundings, but ever plucky and hopeful. At Junction we met a late Paymaster, U. S. Vol's., who was half-owner of the chief grocery and liquor-store, as well as partner in a stone-quarry, and was about establishing a National Bank. He was a man of spirit and enterprise, and seemed to have enough surplus energy left for several more employments.

At Leavenworth, up at the old Fort, we saw our first Indians--a party of Delawares. They consisted of Fall-Leaf, war-chief of the Delawares, his nephew General Jackson, and a handful of other braves. They were dressed in the usual rough costume of the border, but with an eagle-feather or two in their broad-brimmed sombreros trailing in the wind. Fall-Leaf was a noble specimen of the Indian in a half-civilized state. He was a brawny, athletic, powerful fellow, five feet eleven inches high, weighed one hundred and ninety-six pounds, and was fifty-five years old. A perfect mass of bone and muscle, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, his frame was a sight to look upon--especially the massive splendor of his neck and chest. A Hercules of the Plains, we could well believe the stories told of his great strength and powers of endurance. General Jackson was a lithe, light-built man, about thirty-six years of age, and in physique almost the opposite of his brawny uncle. Three of them had just been engaged as guides to a military expedition about leaving for the Indian country, and a fourth was going along as interpreter. Fall-Leaf had long served the government, with marked fidelity, as guide on the Plains and in the far Indian country, and received one hundred and fifty dollars per month and rations when absent on such duty. He was familiar with the whole country west, as far as the Rocky Mountains, and southward to New Mexico, and was reputed as invaluable in his way. He told me the Delawares numbered about a thousand souls yet, and had stood at those figures for several years. They occupy a Reservation of several thousand acres on the Missouri just below Leavenworth, and are engaged generally in farming and stock-raising. They have a church, pretty generally attended, and a good school, well-patronized. He said his people were fully impressed with the importance of education and religion, and generally there was an earnest desire among them to have their children learn all "Pale-Face ways." He said he took a drink of "fire-water" himself occasionally, on cold or wet days, and rather liked it; but that, as a rule, drunkenness was on the decrease among the Delawares, and he was glad of it. He had a wife and eight children, and said they allowed "only one wife at a time in his tribe." He said he was born far away toward the rising sun, on a river among the mountains; and when I showed him a map, he immediately pointed out the head-waters of the Delaware. When I told him I had just come from there, and that my "wigwam" stood upon its banks, he seemed greatly interested. The first steamboat he ever saw, was many years before at St. Louis, and he thought it "Very good," because "It went itself! Puff! Puff! No paddle!" His first locomotive, was quite recently at Leavenworth, and he thought it "Much good! Went whiz! Beat buffalo or pony!" Of the telegraph, he said, "I no understand; but very much good! Heap swift! Like arrow or bullet between wide places; only heap better!"

He said, the Delawares believed in the Great Manitou, who made earth, and sky, and everything; but many did not believe in the Evil Manitou. He himself seemed to be a pretty good Universalist. He thought God "very much good," and couldn't imagine how any lesser being could interfere with Him. "Perhaps, Evil Manitou somewhere; but Fall-Leaf know only Good Manitou." He admitted some of his people believed in spirits; but he himself had never seen any, and was skeptical on the whole subject. Some medicine-men, he said, claimed to have seen them, and to be able to control them; but he thought the whole thing "a heap humbug."

Fall-Leaf, as I have said, was then War Chief of the Delawares. In his time he had been quite a noted warrior, and was proud of his reputation for bravery and prowess. His last fight against the Plains Indians had been about two years before, when he covered the retreat of a squad of infantry, from a body of mounted Cheyennes and Arrapahoes, and brought them all safely off. His last fight at the head of the Delawares had been some ten years before, when with less than fifty warriors he encountered and fought over two hundred Pawnees, and whipped them well. Altogether, he supposed, he had killed and scalped two or three hundred Indians, in his time; but never a pale-face. He was a dignified and quiet enough looking Red Skin to talk to through an interpreter, and occasionally would grunt out a little broken English himself; but when roused, and with the fury of battle upon him, no doubt he would be an ugly customer to deal with. His face was full of smothered force and fire, of latent power and fierceness, like a tamed tiger's; and notwithstanding his peaceful demeanor, he all the while suggested that a single war-whoop, or a scalping-knife flashing through the air, would speedily transform the gentle Fall-Leaf into a hideous savage again.

Beyond Topeka we passed St. Mary's, a Catholic Mission among the Pottawotamies. These Indians had a Reservation there then thirty miles square, of as fine land as there was in Kansas. Stock-raising seemed to be their chief occupation, though they had some fields well fenced, and their corn crops were looking well. They lived in one-story log-cabins, and by dint of years of hard work the missionaries had succeeded in reducing them to a sort of semi-civilization; but the aborigine survived still, and cropped out fearfully everywhere. It was an anomaly and an anachronism to see them driving teams and threshing grain; and they themselves seemed to confess it by their awkwardness. Beyond Manhattanville we met _en route_ a large party of them--braves, squaws and papooses--returning from a Buffalo hunt on the Plains. Some were in wagons with their spoils of buffalo meat and robes; but the majority went careering along on horseback. Most of them were in semi-civilized costume, not much rougher than an average borderer, though their head-gear usually ran much to feather. A few of their young squaws were decidedly pretty and piquant, and, as they ambled by on their gaily-caparisoned ponies, created quite a sensation among us; but the older ones were hideous looking hags.

In all this part of Kansas, the Indian had already had his day, and everywhere was being fast eliminated. The valleys of the Kaw and its two chief tributaries, the Republican and Smoky Hill, had already heard the whistle of the white man's locomotive, and the whole region there was beginning to shake with the tread of the onward march of civilization. As "Bleeding Kansas," she had had her dark days; but these, happily, were past, and the tide wave of eastern immigration was now surging and swelling all up and down her borders. We met cheery voices and friendly hands at every stage of progress; and could not but bid Kansas a hearty God-speed as we journeyed on.

Chapter II.

From The Kansas To The Platte.

It was the middle of August, before I was ready to leave Fort Riley; and now a word about my _compagnons du voyage_. These were two, Mr. J. D. L. of Boston, my well-tried clerk and friend; and Dr. B. E. M. of New York, then recently Ass't. Editor ---- Magazine. Mr. L. had been with me for several years in the field and at post; was active, intelligent, alert; and was as capital a shot, as he was rare a penman. Dr. M. I knew but slightly; but he came well-recommended, as a _literateur_ and gentleman, and I was glad to have his company. He had been considerable of a traveller in Europe, and was now desirous of crossing the Continent to San Francisco, whence he might go over to Japan and China. Another gentleman had also talked much of joining us; but his heart failed him at the last hour, and he preceded us to California, _via_ the Isthmus.

My inspections at Leavenworth and Riley being completed, we left Fort Riley just after sunrise Aug. 16th, and soon were fairly afloat on the Plains, and off for the Pacific. Hitherto the railroad had still served to connect us with the East. But now we bade good-bye to cars and locomotives, and did not see them again until we heard their tramp and whistle two thousand miles away, in the cañon of the Columbia. "Afloat," I think, is the only right word for the Plains; because the first impression they give you is that of the sea, so vast is their extent, and even the wagons that cross them--huge, lumbering, fore-and-aft vehicles, with from eight to ten yoke of oxen each--in border parlance are called "Prairie-Schooners."

My orders were to proceed from Fort Riley on the Kaw or Kansas, to Fort Kearney on the Platte; and, as the shortest and most direct route, we were now off, across the country, in execution of them. Our route lay northwest across the high "divide" between the Kansas and the Platte, through central Kansas; and as there was no stage-line here, we had to go by ambulance. Neither was there any well-defined road; but we were told that at Marysville, some sixty miles north, we could strike the great Overland Route, from Atchison, Mo. and afterwards travel westward by that. Our "outfit" consisted of one ambulance for ourselves, one army-wagon for our escort of five infantry-men, and another for baggage, forage, and rations. Our friends at Riley knew little about the intervening country, except that Indians were reported there; and as their cavalry was all out scouting, could furnish only the infantry escort, as above. Even this seemed small; but we were all well-armed ourselves; and what with our repeating rifles and revolvers, few as we were, felt good for fifty red skins or more, come as they would.

For the first seventy-five miles or so, we were seldom out of sight of scattered ranches; but long before reaching Fort Kearney--some two hundred and thirty miles from Riley--they had dwindled away to only the occasional stage-stations, every ten or twelve miles or so apart. Along the creeks and streams, we found farms rapidly springing up; but the "divides" between these were generally barren and withered up. Oftentimes we could find no water for ten or twelve miles, and wood was even rarer. Of course, we "camped-out" during the whole trip, and frequently had to carry our necessary fire-wood fifteen and twenty miles. In the spring, all these "divides," as well as the bottoms, are clothed with luxuriant verdure; but in summer, the rainless atmosphere there sweeps over them, like a sirocco, and everything soon perishes. At night, we found the air grew rapidly cold, and we shivered under our blankets; but in the middle of the day, the sun fairly blazed from a cloudless sky, and I have seldom felt its effects more severely. When we struck the Overland Route, we found its roadway a mass of impalpable dust, black and stifling. With the breeze dead-ahead, or athwart our course, we got along very well; but when it chopped around behind us, the black prairie soil rose in clouds, and our poor mules suffered terribly. Two of them, indeed, died outright, from heat and dust, before reaching the Platte, though we drove very carefully, seldom averaging over thirty-five miles per day. Evidently this part of Kansas must grow more trees, and thus secure more rain and moisture, before these high "divides" or ridges between the Kansas and the Platte will amount to much for farming purposes.

After a week of travelling like this, our first sight of the Platte, with its broad and luxuriant bottoms waving with verdure, was refreshing to the eye. Our jaded animals snuffed the water and grass afar off, and of their own accord broke into a trot as we neared them. We struck the river at Valley Ranche, a collection of a dozen or so sod-houses, some seven or eight miles below Fort Kearney. The Platte here is a mile or more wide, and looks like a noble stream; but it is shallow and treacherous with shoals and quicksands, as well as tainted with alkali, and altogether is about as thorough a swindle as a river can well be. Its northern bank was still fringed with cottonwoods, but its southern had scarcely a bush to break the monotony. Ascending it to Fort Kearney, we found its broad bottoms literally swarming with countless millions of Plains grasshoppers. They really covered the ground, a moving army; they filled the air, coming in all directions, their white wings twinkling like a snow-squall. Egypt's plague of locusts could scarcely have been worse, for they swept a broad tract of country clean of everything, as they moved eastward. We found the settlers complaining of them bitterly, as the greatest pests of the region, destroying all vegetation and forbidding all attempts at farming, some seasons. Said a butternut Missourian, in speaking of them: "The pesky varmints! They eat up all my corn, and tobacco. And then when I cussed 'em for it, they coolly sat on the Shanghai-fence thar, and squirted tobacco juice at me!" But they have been almost as bad in other new states, at first, and it was thought the advance of our line of settlements would soon subdue or extirpate them.

On leaving Riley, we had anticipated some good shooting _en route_; but game generally proved rare, or else quite shy. Prairie-chickens or grouse abounded until we got beyond the settlements, when they disappeared almost entirely. They are a timid bird, and hard to approach on foot; but on horseback or in a wagon you may get close upon them very easily. Feeding in the grass or reeds, in small flocks, at the first sound they pop their heads up erect, as if inviting the sportsman to crack away at them. This we did continually from an ambulance or behind it, and seldom went into camp the first few days without prairie-chickens enough for all. We expected to see deer and buffalo, but were unable to catch sight of even one, being too far east yet. As we approached the Platte, we saw a solitary antelope, gazing at us from a distant bluff; but when we drew nearer he wheeled about and dashed quickly out of sight among its sand-hills. Doves and cow-birds appeared in quite considerable numbers when we struck the Overland Route, and, of course, the crow or buzzard also--the omnipresent scavenger of the Plains. Our first prairie-dogs turned up on the Little Blue, just beyond Thompson's. Here was quite a village of the little fellows, with their sentinels duly out; but as we came nearer, the alarm was sounded, and soon "whisk" went a hundred tails, as they plunged head downwards into their holes. A few noses peeped cautiously out as we drove by; but the most of their dogships continued _perdu_. Just above one hole a diminutive owl still stood guard in the deepening twilight, and the settlers insisted that the old yarn about the prairie-dog, the owl, and the rattlesnake being tenants in common--all keeping house in one and the same hole--is really true. We overheard our teamsters (all old Plainsmen) disputing about this one night, around their camp-fire, as we lay awake; but their final conclusion, and the weight of frontier testimony, seemed to be in favor of this Happy Family.

Of Indians we heard a great deal, but saw none. Rumors of them increased as we moved north and west; but, if about, they gave us a wide berth. At Virginia Station, about half way, the station-keeper reported the Pawnees in force on the Little Blue; and at Big Sandy the last stage-driver through from Fort Kearny reported Fort Reno taken, Fort Laramie besieged and Kearny itself in danger. He said, one settler had already been lanced and killed on the Little Blue; that the Pawnees there--six hundred lodges strong--were moody and hostile; and, as our party was too small for effective resistance advised our return. Further on we found ranches here and there abandoned, with the crops left growing; and one day we descried a solitary horseman in the distance galloping rapidly towards us, that we were sure must be a red skin. But as he came nearer he proved to be a settler's half-grown boy, who had been up the road several miles helping a neighbor move. He, too, had heard "Big Injun" stories, but said his people did not mind them much. These reports, at first, I confess, were rather startling, as we had no idea of losing our scalps; but as our safe advance day by day exploded one after another of them, we soon became quite skeptical on the Indian question. The chief effect was to increase our prudence and vigilance. We looked well to our arms morning and evening, and seldom halted, even briefly, without posting a guard. In due time we reached and passed the valley of the Little Blue without seeing a Pawnee--they had all gone off a fortnight before to the Republican and Smoky Hill to hunt buffalo--and finally arrived at Fort Kearny in safety. There they laughed at the idea of Indians south or east of them, but confessed to ugly reports about Reno and Laramie. Ultimately, as we got farther west, these also proved false; and our conclusion as to Big Injun stories in general, was not very favorable.

The few settlers along the route consisted chiefly of New Englanders, with a goodly sprinkling of Germans. They generally had milk and eggs to sell, but seldom butter or vegetables. We camped one night on Fancy Creek, near a Mr. Segrist's, where we got tomatoes and onions, as well as eggs and milk; and as we had shot several prairie-chickens during the day, we supped luxuriously. Our mess-kit was rather a primitive affair, not much to speak of, and our cook quite a worthless fellow, as it turned out; but L. developed a talent that way very surprising, and so we got along comfortably. This Segrist himself was quite a character in his way. A Pennsylvania Dutchman by birth, he was bred in Indiana, but emigrated to Fancy Creek during the Kansas troubles, to help save the territory to freedom. Squatting on a quarter-section there, he first built himself a log-cabin, and then subsequently enlarged and improved this by a "lean-to;" now he had just completed a good two-story stone house, of magnesian limestone, and aspired to luxury. He had flocks and herds well about him; he was a hearty, cheery man, not afraid of hard work, nor a spice of danger; and, it was plain to be seen, would soon be a rich man, if he kept on. Of course, he was a Republican in politics, and took the St. Louis _Westliche Post_.

On Wild-Cat Creek, the first day out from Fort Riley, we struck a Mr. Silvers, who proved to be a minister of the United Brethren. He had a half-section of land there, and his son-in-law as much more just adjoining. They were both living in rude shanties put up by themselves, but seemed happy and contented. During the war, he had sent one son to the army, and when Price invaded Kansas he himself shouldered his Plains rifle, and marched to the defence of Lawrence and Topeka. When at home, he worked upon his farm; but he had a frontier circuit, with preaching places a hundred miles in every direction, which took him away most of the time. He seemed to be a veritable missionary, looking up the lost sheep scattered along the Border, and we bade him God-speed. His "gude wife" gave us a bowl of buttermilk fresh from the churn, and we paid her in the latest eastern newspapers.

Chapter III.

Up The Platte To Denver.

The Union Pacific Railroad had then just reached Fort Kearney from Omaha, and was the sensation of the hour. With a large force of men, it was being pushed rapidly up the north bank of the Platte; but as our road lay up the south bank, we did not cross to see it. There was little to prevent its rapid progress of a mile and even two miles per day, as the Platte valley ascends gradually, and for railroad purposes is almost everywhere practically a level. We now dismissed our ambulance and escort, with instructions to return to Fort Riley, and transferred ourselves, bag and baggage, to Holliday's Overland Stages, which here connected with the railroad.

This stage-line was long one of the first enterprises of America, and, as the forerunner of the railroad did its part well in carrying civilization across the continent. It was then owned and controlled by Mr. Ben Holliday, an enterprising Missourian, but then living in New York. It had originally fallen into his hands for debt, but he had since greatly enlarged and extended it. It then ran from Fort Kearney to Denver, with branches to the mining regions; thence across the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake;[2] thence through Idaho to the Columbia, with branches through Montana; extending in all, nearly three thousand miles, employing six thousand horses and mules, and more than three hundred coaches. He paid his general superintendent ten thousand dollars per year; his division superintendents, half that; and lesser employees proportionately. His hay, and grain, and provisions, he had to haul hundreds of miles, distributing them along the route, and his fuel frequently one hundred and fifty. To offset all this, he carried the U. S. Mail, daily each way, and for this service alone received over half a million of dollars per year from the government. In addition, his passenger fares from Fort Kearney to Denver were one hundred and fifty dollars; to Salt Lake, three hundred; to Nevada, four hundred and fifty; to California, five hundred; and to Idaho and Montana, about the same.

We found his stages to be our well-known Concord coaches, and they quite surpassed our expectations, both as to comfort and to speed. They were intended for nine inside--three seats full--and as many more outside, as could be induced to get on. Their teams were either four or six horses, depending on the roads, and the distance between stations. The animals themselves were our standing wonder; no broken-down nags, or half-starved Rosinantes, like our typical stage-horses east; but, as a rule, they were fat and fiery, and would have done credit to a horseman anywhere. Wiry, gamey, as if feeling their oats thoroughly, they often went off from the stations at a full gallop; at the end of a mile or so would settle down to a square steady trot; and this they would usually keep up right along until they reached the next station. These "stations" varied from ten to twelve miles apart, depending on water and grass, and consisted of the rudest kind of a shanty or sod-house ordinarily. Here we would find another team, ready harnessed, prancing to be gone, and in fifteen minutes or so would be off on the road again. Halts were made twice a day for meals, forty minutes each, and with this exception we kept bowling ahead night and day. Our meals were fair for the region; generally coffee, beef-steak or bacon, potatoes, and saleratus-biscuit hot; but the prices--one dollar and one dollar and a half per meal--seemed extortionate. In this way, we often made ten and twelve miles per hour, while on the road; and seldom drove less than one hundred, and one hundred and twenty-five miles, per day and night.

We talked a good deal, or essayed to, with the drivers; but as a rule, they were a taciturn species. Off the box they were loquacious enough; but when mounted, with four or six in hand, they either thought it unprofessional to talk, or else were absorbed too much in their business. I remarked this to a Division Superintendent, when he replied, "You bet! A talking driver is like a whistling girl or crowing hen, always of no account!" They each had their drive of fifty or sixty miles, up one day, and back the next, and to the people along the route were important personages. Many we found were from New Hampshire, and Western New York. Usually they were a roving class; but when they once settled down to stage-driving, they seldom left it permanently. There seemed to be a fascination about the life, hard as it was, and we found many of these Jehus who had been driving for years, and never expected to quit it. They were fond of tobacco and whiskey, and rolled out ponderous oaths, when things did not go to suit them; but as a rule, they were hearty and generous fellows, and were doing the world good service. As bearers of the U. S. Mail, they felt themselves kings of the road, and were seldom loth to show it. "Clar the road! Git out of the way thar with your bull-teams!" was a frequent salutation, when overtaking or meeting wagon-trains; and if this was not complied with quickly, they made little hesitation in running into the oxen, and swearing till all was blue. I have a vivid recollection of one instance of the kind, when we ran into an ox-team, and the justly exasperated teamster sent us his compliments, in the shape of a bullet whizzing through the air, as we whirled away again.

In fellow-passengers we were remarkably lucky. Col. B. was a good specimen of the ups and downs of an average Westerner. He was a graduate of West Point, or at least had been a cadet there, and afterwards served some years in the Regular Army. Retiring to civil life, he subsequently was elected Lieut.-Governor of a western state, and afterwards became Governor--the incumbent dying. When the war broke out, he turned up as Colonel of a volunteer regiment; and now, like the Irishman, having been "promoted backward," was vegetating as sutler at a post on the Plains. He was a man of rare wit and intelligence, of infinite jest and humor (his own worst enemy), and we were sorry to part when he reached his post. Then we had a Swiss artist, M. Buchser, sent over by his government to make a grand painting illustrative of our late war, embracing our most famous statesmen and generals, for the Capitol at Berne. Having a month or two of leisure, he was spending it wisely in making a run to the Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Now he was hurrying on to join Gen. Sherman at Julesburg, whence he was to accompany him and his brother, the Ohio Senator, on a tour of inspection to Fort Laramie, Buford, Denver, and then east again via the Arkansas. He was a close observer, had travelled much on both continents, and was very chatty and companionable, speaking English like a native. He sketched constantly _en route_, making "studies" of the Platte valley from the top of the stage-coach, and when we parted at Fort McPherson, it was with the mutual hope of meeting again at Denver. Next we had a Doctor of Divinity from Illinois, of the Methodist persuasion, _en route_ to Golden City and the Mountains, in search of health, and to look after certain mining interests of some company in the east. Then we had a banker from New York, of copperhead tendencies, bound for Idaho City, also in quest of mines; but his wife was a staunch Republican, and more than offset his political heresies. We had others besides, merchants, miners, telegraph-men, etc., and really not one disagreeable person.

As to the weather, we found that intensely hot in the middle of the day (it being the last of August and first of September), but the mornings and evenings were delightful, and the nights always superb. Most of the passengers preferred the inside; but Dr. M. and I chose the outside, which with some inconveniences had its advantages after all. By day it gave us a wider view of the country; and at night we used to give our blankets a "shake down" on the flat top (first borrowing an armful of hay from some station), and then go luxuriously to sleep. At first when we tried this, not understanding the philosophy of the situation, we came near rolling off when the coach would pitch into a chuck-hole, or give a lurch from heel to port; but we soon learned to boom ourselves on, with a rope or strap from railing to railing, and thus managed to secure not a little of "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," while our fellow-passengers down below (nine inside), packed like sardines in a box, got seldom a wink. The most of the time, the moon was at the full or about that, and superb in her unveiled glory. The sky was packed with a myriad of stars, far beyond what we ever see east. The air, pure and dry, free from both dew and frost, was a perpetual tonic to lungs and brain. Every hundred miles or so we stopped over a day or two to inspect some Military Post, and so got rested. The scenery from day to day was ever fresh and changing, abounding in new sensations. And, in short, in all my experiences of life, I have few pleasanter recollections than in thus staging it outside, across the Plains, and up the Platte to Denver. One night, however, a wind-storm from the summit of the Rocky Mountains struck us, and for hours raged furiously--raw and gusty, piercing to the bone. But at midnight we rolled into Fort Morgan, and halting in its hospitable quarters, waited until the wind blew itself out.

The sunsets now and then were magnificent, and one particularly beyond Fort Sedgwick or Julesburg deserves further mention. We were rolling rapidly along, when the sun went down behind a cloud, that formed the huge segment of a circle on the horizon, and from around and behind this his rays came flashing forth with a beauty--a glory and a gorgeousness--that we had never seen equalled. Heavy, sombre clouds hung about the west, while over head and off to the east they thinned out into fleecy mottled masses almost invisible, until his reflected rays illuminated them. Up among these, across the whole dome of the heavens, the colors flamed and went, as tremulous as a maiden's blushes--now crimson and gold, then purple and violet, and now again a dreamy, hazy, half-pink, half rosy light, that baffles description. I had seen gorgeous sunsets elsewhere--on the Hudson, among the Alleghanies, by the sea--but never any so full of glory and majesty, and sublimity as this. The fleecy masses overhead seemed to hang in curtains, one behind the other, like the top scenes at a theatre, and the shifting light playing about among them added to the illusion. Nature seemed here to enrobe the heavens in her most magnificent and gorgeous tapestry, as if trying to show what glorious fabrics her noiseless looms could weave; and over all brooded that mysterious silence of the Plains, that seems like the hush of eternity. It must have been some such scene, that flamed through the poet's brain when he wrote:

"All the west was washed with fire; Great clouds were standing round the setting sun, Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles, Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light, Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame, Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks Of piléd gorgeousness, and rocks of fire A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas."

A singular part of it all was, that passengers in the next stage-coach, a hundred miles east, were struck with the same magnificent sunset, and followed us into Denver with similar accounts of its grandeur and sublimity, at the point where they had been.

Footnote:

[2] The line thence to California was run by Wells, Fargo & Co.

Chapter IV.

UP THE PLATTE TO DENVER (_Concluded_).

The Platte Valley itself is a great furrow or groove in the heart of the Plains proper, extending substantially due west from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains. On the line of our tier of northern cities, and so in the track of northern ideas across the continent, it is as if nature intended it for a great natural highway, and already it had come to its fulfilment. Its early selection by our army of emigrants to Colorado, Utah, California, etc., was because of its supplying the three great desiderata of wood, water and grass, better than any other route; and its easy grades, as well as accumulating trade and travel, made it the predestined pathway of the Pacific Railroad. It varies in breadth from five to ten miles, and is bounded on either side by abrupt bluffs two or three hundred feet high, whence outstretch the Plains proper. Extending from the foot of these bluffs, for a mile or more usually, is a level plateau or "bench" (in Plains parlance), composed of sand and gravel, and worthless for agricultural purposes from want of moisture. To be sure, during the spring a meagre herbage is sustained here, but long before summer ends everything green parches and withers up. Then come the bottoms proper, on either side of the river, of rich loam and clay, which produce grass in goodly quantities all summer, and we saw no reason why they should not also grow most cereals and vegetables. Perhaps it is too far north for Indian corn; but wheat, barley, oats and rye ought to flourish there, except in localities where the soil may be too strongly impregnated with alkali or soda. Their natural adaptation, however, is for grass, and I apprehend we shall soon have our flocks and herds, by the acre, feeding all up and down by the Platte. When you reach the North Platte the valley of course subdivides, and you continue on up the valley of the South Platte to Denver. The fertile and cultivable bottoms, of course, narrow as you advance; nevertheless, they maintain a considerable breadth nearly everywhere, despite encroaching bluffs, and around and beyond Denver are made highly productive by occasional irrigation as needed. Utilize the unfailing waters of the Platte by windmills or otherwise, as they do their streams in Italy, Egypt and China, and the Platte valley throughout its length will yet become a garden.

The Platte itself to the eye is a broad and lusty stream, and in places, as near Fort McPherson, expands into a sea of islands, most refreshing to behold after days of dusty travel. But while in volume sufficient for a first-class river, its banks are so shifting and its sand-bars so numerous and variable, that it has always proved practically unnavigable, notwithstanding our western rivers swarm with stern-wheelers, many of which it is said only require a respectable ditch or half decent dew. Unbridged and without ferries, we found it crossed only at a few well-defined fords, and even these were so cursed by quicksands, that trains in crossing stood in great danger of bringing up at Jeddo or Pekin. Its waters were considered healthy and sweet, notwithstanding a trace of alkali, and with all its shortcomings, it seemed nevertheless a perfect God-send to that particular region. Its banks and islands were usually fringed with cottonwoods and poplars, and furnished almost the only supply of fuel to passing emigrants and travellers. The settled residents there, however, the station-keepers and ranchmen, depended more on the stunted cedars, that abounded generally in all the ravines and cañons, with which the side-bluffs of the valley are more or less seamed. Here also they procured the most of their lumber, and from here supplied thousands of ties for the Union Pacific Railroad. We were surprised to find these cedars so abundant in the cañons, where nothing tree-like was visible until you entered. Then we found the whole bottom and sides frequently lined with them to the top; but there they abruptly ceased, as if close shaven by the winds, which in certain months sweep over the Plains mercilessly.

In both wood and lumber, however, we found the Platte valley sadly lacking, and the whole Plains country generally. Good peat had been found at Julesburg, and bituminous coal was reported near Fort Morgan; but our posts were depending for both fuel and lumber mainly on the Platte and its side cañons. At Fort Sedgwick, near Julesburg, they had been hauling wood nearly a hundred miles, at a cost to the government of over a hundred dollars per cord, there being none nearer or cheaper. Lumber cost one hundred and seventeen dollars per thousand, and shingles fifteen dollars per thousand, and were held cheap at that. The year before, lumber had cost two hundred and five dollars per thousand, and shingles in proportion. Grain (corn and oats) was wagoned from the Missouri, and cost the government, put down at Sedgwick, about seven dollars per bushel. Hay was cut in the vicinity, and cost thirty-four dollars per ton. Recently they had made a contract with shrewd operators in Denver, for lumber at ninety dollars per thousand, and wood at forty-six dollars per cord, both to come from the Rocky Mountains, over two hundred miles away; but the contractors availed themselves of cheap freights by eastward-bound wagon-trains, otherwise returning empty. At Julesburg, we were told, there was not a tree even for fifty miles; formerly there had been a scrubby cottonwood, on the south bank of the Platte there--a lone star in solitary splendor--which was regularly shown to tourists as one of its lions. But this had recently fallen down and floated away, and now Julesburg mourned its loss as "the last of the Mohicans." There was some talk of erecting a monument to its memory; but even this would have to be of "adobe," as stone was equally a rarity there.

Down in the valley proper, the field of vision is limited by the side bluffs, and you see but comparatively little of the country generally. But ascend the bluffs on either side, and the vast ocean of the Plains stretches boundlessly before you--not flat, but billowy with swells and ridges, an illimitable plateau, with only here and there a solitary "butte," sharply defined against the clear sky. In spring this whole vast extent is a wilderness of verdure and flowers; but the summer skies, untempered by rain, as elsewhere said, scorch and burn the ground to cinders, and long before autumn comes all vegetation there practically perishes. Even the hardy buffalo-grass becomes brown and tinder-like, and the only grazing there is in the cañons and valleys. Nevertheless our Plains have hitherto sustained buffalo by the million, and do it still, although these shaggy monsters have of late mostly disappeared from the Platte region. We did not see one in our entire trip to Denver; but a friend, who came through a month or so later, over the Smoky Hill route, where there was less travel, reported buffalo there yet by the horizon full--the whole country being substantially black with them. The short and sweet buffalo-grass is indigenous through all this region, and is said to be nutritious, even when dried up, the year round. What a magnificent range for stock these great Plains will yet afford, when the country becomes more thickly settled up! Much of this region is marked on the old maps as the "Great American Desert;" but from all we saw and heard I doubt not, as a whole, it will yet become the great stock-raising and dairy region of the Republic, whence we shall export beef and mutton, leather and wool, in exchange for cloth and steel.[3]

We had several fine rides with brother-officers among the cañons and bluffs while stopping over to inspect our military posts _en route_, and a grand gallop one bright September morning over the Plains and far away after antelope. In the cañons and along the bluffs we started plenty of jack-rabbits; but the antelope were shy and apparently always on the run, so much so we could never get within shot of them. We formed a long line across the country, and as we swept forward started two or three small herds; but they were all too fleet for Uncle Sam's coursers. Subsequently we halted, and lying down tried the old hunter's trick of enticing them with a handkerchief on a ramrod, with our rifles ready to blaze away as they drew near; but they were too cunning to be caught by any such rascally flag-of-truce arrangement, and it seemed a shame to attempt it. The ride itself, however, was a great satisfaction, full of excitement, exhilaration, enjoyment. The sky was a perfect sapphire, without cloud or haze. The clear atmosphere braced one's nerves like wine, and revealed distant objects with a pre-Raphaelite distinctness. A pyramid-like "butte," off to the southwest, seemed near at hand, though more than twenty miles away. The ground was baked hard, with a thin covering of dry-grass, except in the occasional buffalo-wallows; and altogether our horses seemed to enjoy the gallop quite as much as we did ourselves. There was just a spice of danger in the ride, too, as Indians were reported prowling about, but none appeared. We left the Platte with its bluffs and cañons behind us, and out into the boundless Plains we rode, on and on, and only drew rein when we discovered that we had lost our reckoning, and were without a compass. The person charged with providing this had forgotten it, and suddenly we found ourselves at sea, without guide or headland. Fortunately we had the well-worn buffalo-trails, that there run almost due north and south--the old paths over which they formerly went to and from the Platte for water--and following up one of these, after an hour or two, we found ourselves in sight of the river again. These "trails" are no wider than ordinary cow-paths, but they are worn deep into the soil, and show by their great number and depth what countless herds of buffalo must have roamed here in other days. They are a sure guide up and down the bluffs, many of which are so precipitous that safe ascent or descent elsewhere seems impossible. But the buffalo, by a wise instinct, seems to have hit just the right point, and deserves credit for such skillful engineering.

The population of the Platte Valley was yet mostly _in futuro_. The little _in esse_ was grouped sparsely around the several Military posts--Forts Kearney, McPherson, Sedgwick and Morgan--the intervening stage-stations, and at Julesburg. The largest hamlet, perhaps five hundred inhabitants or so, was near Fort Kearney, having grown up on the outskirts of that post, and bearing the same name. Julesburg consisted of a blacksmith-shop, a grocery, a billiard-saloon, and a half-dozen houses all of adobe. It was on the South Platte, at the point of crossing for the Utah and Montana travel, which here bore away northwest for Bridger's Pass, and so did a considerable business already in canned-fruits and tangle-foot whiskey. A year afterwards, it was the terminus for awhile of the Union Pacific Railroad, went up speedily to two or three thousand inhabitants, and figured largely in eastern journals. But, presently, with the ongoing of the railroad, its importance ceased, and its inhabitants,

"Folded their tents like the Arabs, And silently stole away."

The stage-stations usually had a ranch or two adjoining, though these grew more infrequent, as we got farther west. These were only rude huts of sod or adobe, with dirt-roofs, divided into two apartments--one for sleeping purposes, and the other for a cross-roads grocery. The stock on hand usually consisted largely of tobacco, canned-fruits and vegetables, and the worst varieties of "needle-gun" whiskey, warranted to kill a mile away. Hay and wood were also kept on hand, for sale to passing trains, and many ranchmen managed thus to pick up considerable money in the course of the year. Generally two men occupied a ranch thus together, though sometimes squaws were found serving as "brevet"-wives. Much of their time was spent, especially at night, in playing "poker," "old-sledge," "seven-up," etc. for the want of something else to do; and a newspaper, a Congressional speech, or even a Pub. Doc., was always welcome. Farther west, the stage-stations and ranch-huts were built more substantially, and often were regularly bastioned and loop-holed for a siege. One of the most notable of these was Fort Wicked, about half-way between Julesburg and Denver. It was built of sods and adobe, with a thick wall of the same on three sides, and was really an arrow and bullet-proof block-house. A year or so before, it had been attacked by a party of Cheyennes and Arrapahoes; but the owner and his men showed fight--killed several of the red-skins, and put the rest to flight--whereupon some one christened the place "Fort Wicked," and the name stuck.

[Illustration: PLAINS INDIANS.]

Wagon-trains going west or returning east, we met frequently, but not to the extent we anticipated. They usually consisted of from ten to twenty wagons each, with from eight to twelve pairs of mules or yokes of oxen to each wagon. Going up from the "River," as the Missouri was always called, these trains being loaded all had their full complement of wagon-masters, teamsters, cooks, etc. But, returning empty, several wagons were often coupled together--the surplus employees stopping over in the mines. By day, these trains stretched their huge length along, the great white-sheeted wagons or "prairie-schooners" carrying each from ten to twelve thousand pounds; but, at night, their wagons were formed into a "corral," with the animals inside to prevent the Indians stampeding them, and the picturesque effect of such encampments was always pleasing. Even here on the Plains, about the last place we would suppose, the inherent aristocracy of human nature cropped out distinctly. The lords of the lash _par excellence_ were the stage-drivers. The next most important, the horse or mule teamsters; and the lowest, the "bull-drivers." The horse or mule teams made from twelve to fifteen miles per day; the ox-trains eight to ten. For real vagabondage, pure and simple, life with one of these trains seemed hard to beat. An Arab of the desert, or a Gaucho of the pampas, could ask for nothing more nomadic. And if anybody is sick of Sybaris, and anxious to get away from all trace of civilization, here is the place for him. It seemed to be going down to the bed-rock in the social scale, and afforded a splendid opportunity to study first principles. A school-friend of mine, a man of fine culture, tried it formerly, and his experiences were racy and rare. Subsequently, as miner, land agent, speculator, and lawyer, at Pike's Peak and Denver, he made two or three fortunes and lost them; then emigrated to San Francisco, where he made another as army contractor; and then wisely forsook the fickle goddess, and settled in New York.

Rumors of impending troubles with the Indians thickened as we advanced. The settlers and stage-people said the Indians appeared but little on the road, which was a sure sign that a storm was brewing. Further they said the tribes had had a grand pow-wow recently on the Smoky Hill and the Republican, in which they had agreed to bury the hatchet and make common cause against the pale-faces. Subsequently, later in the autumn, they did attack some stations on the Smoky Hill route, and a stage or two on the Platte route; but we reached Denver unmolested. East of Julesburg, at Baker's ranch, we passed an encampment of Sioux, perhaps two or three hundred, papooses and all, in cone-shaped wigwams, evidently the original of our army "Sibley." While changing horses, we strolled into several of their wigwams, and found them full of braves, squat upon their hams, intently engaged in playing cards. In Indian pantomime, they warmly invited us to participate, but we were obliged to decline the distinguished honor. The squaws were mostly at work on moccasins or blankets, and their tawny little papooses (stark naked, except a breech-cloth) were either practising with bows and arrows, or "lying around loose." The entire party seemed utterly poverty-stricken, even to their ponies and dogs, and, generally, about as wretched as human beings could well be. Their main provisions seemed to be rusty army-rations, which had recently been issued to them at one of our neighboring posts, and without these they would have been practically destitute. Dirty, squalid, indecent, and half-starving, they seemed but little removed above the brute creation, and gave a terrible shock to all preconceived ideas about the "Noble Red Man," if we had any. They were the first real savages--pure and simple--we had met, and our poetry and romance, born of Cooper and Longfellow, shivered at the spectacle. Some miles farther on, we encountered two young "bucks," gaily attired in blankets, beads, feathers, etc., jogging along on their ponies to the camp at Baker's. They had given a big scare to a poor German we overtook--a blacksmith, travelling alone from station to station, in a light two-mule buggy, to shoe the Company's horses. The appearance of our coach, however, made him feel his scalp more secure, and falling in behind he followed us up for miles, singing at the top of his voice "Annie, dear Annie of the vale!" Our stage was full inside and out, and we were all well-armed--in fact, fairly bristled with repeating-rifles and revolvers--and had we been attacked no doubt would have given a good account of ourselves. Our experiences up to Denver, however, inclined us to be somewhat skeptical on the Indian question, and our subsequent observations did not greatly change this. The whole region, indeed, seemed to be over-sensitive on the subject. The air was everywhere thick with rumors, that one by one disappeared as we advanced, and we hardly knew which to wonder at the more--the veracity or credulity of the Plains. In fact, that prince of romancers, Baron Munchausen, seemed to preside over the country, or the people to be his lineal descendants, almost everywhere.

Footnote:

[3] See Appendix.

Chapter V.

Denver And The Mines.

We reached Denver Sept. 5th, and remained there several days. Approaching by the South Platte, you catch sight of the town a mile or two away, when crossing a "divide," and are surprised at its size and importance. Ten years before, there was not an inhabitant there; but now she claimed seven thousand or more, and boasted with reason, of two hundred and fifty houses erected that year. Moreover, the new buildings were chiefly of brick or stone, while the old ones were log or frame. At the junction of the South Platte and Cherry Creek her streets are well-laid out, mostly at right-angles, and for suburbs she has the boundless Plains. Apparently on a plateau, she is nevertheless really a mountain city; for at St. Louis you are only three hundred feet above the sea, at Omaha nine hundred feet, while at Denver you have got up imperceptibly to four thousand feet above the sea, or higher than our average Alleghanies. Her climate is pure and dry, without rain or frost for many months in the year--the paradise of consumptives--and for scenery, she has the ever-glorious Rocky Mountains. Already she had six churches, two seminaries, two daily papers, a banking-house with a business of twelve millions a year, a U. S. Mint, a theatre, and hotels and saloons unnumbered, though these last it was thought were diminishing. Until recently, gambling-hells had also flourished openly on her streets, with their usual concomitants of drunkenness and affrays. But some months before, a Judge Gale--backed by a strong public opinion--had taken hold of the gamblers, and squelched them effectually. Like other "peculiar institutions," they died hard, raising large sums of money to prolong their evil life--threatening some men and bribing, or trying to bribe, others; but Judge Lynch came to the support of Judge Gale, with the counter-threat of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," and so gamblers ceased to rule in Denver. The happy change was freely commented on, and now that it had come, people wondered why they had endured the blacklegs so long. Denver was now evidently aspiring to better things--to "sweeter manners, purer laws." Her merchants and bankers were building themselves homes, sending east for their families, and settling down, as if to stay. Though not so law-abiding and Sabbath-loving, as our eastern cities, yet her churches were well-attended; and her Episcopal Bishop (Randall), we found scouring the country with all the earnestness and zeal of an old-time missionary, or Methodist itinerant. Band and gown, stole and chasuble, and other ritualistic millenary, he affected but little; but he preached Christ and Him crucified with a tenderness and power, that touched all hearts, and Colorado already had come to love and honor him. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," was his text for as sound and appropriate a discourse the Sabbath we were in Denver, as we had heard in a long while. Every sentence struck home, like a rapier or a bullet, at some sin most prevalent in Colorado, and Denver might well "make a note of it." Subsequently we heard of him in the mines and among the mountains, preaching in quartz-mills and by the roadside--wherever he could gather a handful of hearers--always engaged in the Master's work, and always leaving a deep impression behind him.

Denver, with water and coal both near, yet had neither water nor gas works then, and scarcely a tree or shrub growing anywhere. Numerous trees had been planted, and much shrubbery; but the long and rainless summers had proven too much for them. The winter before, a company had been chartered to bring water from the mountains, for irrigating and other purposes, and they already had one ditch completed--three or four feet wide, by one or two deep--and were projecting others. This one irrigated several farms, turned a grist-mill or two, and then, with a branch to the fair-grounds, emptied into the Platte. But Denver must have such ditches, all around and through her, if she wants trees and shrubbery and then she may have streets and suburbs unsurpassed anywhere. Salt Lake, we afterwards found, had done this; and Denver will, when she has once been well scourged by fire. Then she was powerless against the fire-fiend, and a large conflagration well under way would have swept the town.[4]

Though the largest town in Colorado, and of commanding influence there, yet Denver we found was not the capital, but Golden City instead--a hamlet of five hundred inhabitants or so, fifteen miles farther west, at the base of the mountains. The Territorial Legislature convened there every winter, as required by law; but immediately adjourned to Denver, where all business was really transacted, and where the governor and other territorial officers resided, when not absent in the states, as some often were. In location, Denver itself was, no doubt a geographical blunder, as the business of the country was really among the mines and mountains; but as gold had been first discovered here, it got the start, and bade fair to maintain its supremacy. The sharpest and shrewdest men in Colorado, we found were all settled here. All enterprises, of much pith and moment, began and ended here. All capital centred here. And Denver brains and Denver capital, it was plain to see, ruled and controlled our whole Rocky Mountain region, north to Dacotah and south to New Mexico.

Denver had two real "sensations," while we were there--one, the alleged usurpation of Gov. Cumming, the other the arrival of Gen. Sherman. It seemed there had been a territorial election, for delegate to Congress, and the returns not being clear, Gov. Cumming assumed to give the certificate of election to Hunt, an Andrew Johnson man, rather than to Chilcott, a radical Republican--notwithstanding the Board of Canvassers decided otherwise. The governor claimed that the law and facts were with him, but the Board of Canvassers protested to the contrary, and popular opinion seemed to sustain them. There was a breezy time in Denver for awhile. The papers savagely denounced the governor's conduct, as an outrage and usurpation, and fell into a vein of coarse vituperation they seemed incapable of before. The saloons were filled with excited crowds at night; knots gathered on the streets by day; and presently, one morning out came the papers with the old-time suggestion of "a cottonwood limb and a rope," if His Excellency did not yield. An explosion was now hourly expected, but it did not come. Denver evidently had grown in grace. The mob-spirit of her early days could not be revived, and all good citizens rejoiced to see it. No doubt she liked Judge Lynch still; but she liked Eastern immigration and English capital better, and would do nothing to startle either. The governor wisely appeared in public but little, and for several nights found it convenient to sleep elsewhere than at home. Finally, it was given out, that the military were on his side, as in duty bound, and the storm presently blew over. Subsequently it appeared, that said military consisted of only _two_ officers, without a single soldier; but His Excellency attributed his safety to them, all the same. General Sherman's arrival immediately after was just in the nick of time. It followed on the heels of the election imbroglio, and was a good salve to the public sore. All Denver turned out to welcome him and his distinguished brother (the Ohio Senator), and a cavalcade of horsemen and carriages met them miles away. Next night there was a reception, banquet, speeches, ball, etc. and hundreds assembled to do them honor. There was a lamentable lack of ladies; but brighter, keener men, you could find nowhere. What there were of ladies, were intelligent and sprightly, and all were richly attired and adorned; but Denver needed more of them. Everybody vied in doing Sherman honor, as a great soldier who had fought nobly for the country. They did not know his views yet on the Indian question, which a few months afterwards they denounced so severely. By an ambulance tour of two thousand miles, from post to post, through the heart of the Indian country, he was trying to study the Indian question for himself, as _the_ great question of his Military Division; and yet Denver, fond of contracts, claimed to understand that _questio vexata_ better than he!

We left Denver one bright September morning for Central City and the Mines. A stage ran daily, but wanting to travel more leisurely we went by ambulance. Across the Platte, and over the Plains again for fifteen miles, brought us to the mountains and Golden City, just within the foothills. Clear Creek dashes through the "city," a broad swift stream, furnishing fine water-power for several mills already, with plenty to spare for more. Coal, iron, lead, copper and kaolin were said to exist in the mountains adjacent, and this water-power was therefore justly esteemed very valuable. Four or five miles farther on, the mountains seem to close up--a solid rampart--before you; but suddenly the road shifts and at Gate City, through a narrow rocky cañon you again pass on. The road here follows up a diminutive mountain stream, crossing and re-crossing its bed every few yards, and by a very sinuous course slowly makes its way forward between abrupt masses of red and purple rock, that everywhere seemed to block its progress. Farther on, the hills open out, and wild currant and gooseberry-bushes appear, with pines and firs here and there--many charred by former fires. The road gets wilder the farther you proceed, and the mountain views become more and more superb. You catch glimpses of the great Snowy Range from time to time; but after awhile you cross the first range, and then you have the great white-capped Sierra almost always before you. Three peaks there are especially superb--Old Chief, Squaw and Papoose--their white and glittering summits flashing gloriously in the sunshine. Sometimes we got long views of the Snowy Range, for miles on miles; and then again, deep down in some wild gorge, its rocky sides would suddenly expand, and there would stand these three grand peaks projected against the clear sky, framed in like a picture. A right "kingly spirit throned among the hills," Old Chief seemed to be keeping watch and ward over these Rocky Mountain fastnesses in solemn and solitary grandeur; but the Yankee and the miner had been too much for him.

We dined _en route_, getting a good meal for seventy-five cents, and reached the Conner House at Central City, about 6 P. M., forty miles from Denver. What a strange place was this, and how surprising it all seemed! A busy, active, bustling town, with all the appliances of eastern civilization, in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains--our _ultima thule_ but a few years ago! Or, rather, four towns--Black Hawk, Gregory Gulch, Mountain City, and Central City--all now grown into one. It never was any place for a town; but there had to be one there, and so American genius and pluck went to work and created it. Imagine a narrow, winding mountain-gorge, with Clear Creek flashing through it, with scarcely standing-room on either side for an antelope even, and you have about all Nature has done for a town-site there. Yet our miners had stuck mills, and stores, and saloons, and dwelling-houses, and churches here, almost everywhere, in the most delightful and picturesque confusion. Some were astride of Clear Creek, as if wading up stream. Others were propped up on its edges, as if about to topple in. Others again were mounted on lofty stilts, all along the mountain side, as if just ready to start and walk away. About and through them all, following the general course of Clear Creek, wound one long and narrow street--too narrow for side-walks--and here in this bizarre place, walled in on all sides by the Rocky Mountains, lived and flourished six thousand souls, all apparently busy and well-to-do--with banks, schools, churches, newspapers, telegraphs, theatres, and pretty much all the institutions and destitutions of modern society. There only remained one need, a railroad, and that was already in contemplation, down Clear Creek to Golden City, and so away to Denver. This would bring the ores and coal together at Golden City, for fuel was becoming scarce among the mines; would save much of the cost of travel and transportation by the wild mountain roads; and be a great blessing to the mining regions every way.[5] After tea, we strolled through the town for a mile or more, and found the streets full to overflowing. The theatres were crowded, and the drinking and gambling-saloons in full blast; yet the streets were comparatively orderly. The population seemed of a better class than one would suppose, all things considered. There were scarcely any women, it is true, and what there were had better been elsewhere, as a rule; but the men carried keen, clear-cut, energetic faces, that well explained the enterprise and _elan_ of this audacious town. Of foreigners, there were far fewer than one ordinarily meets east, and the Americans as a rule were athletic and live men--fit to be the pioneers of empire. The inevitable African, of course, cropped out here and there; but usually he had risen from the dignity of a barber or a bootblack, to be a merchant or a miner. Everybody talked of "feet," and "claims," and "dust;" and bets were made, and drinks paid for, in "ounces" and parts of an ounce, as determined by the universal scales and weights. Greenbacks were still taken, but they were regarded as a depreciated currency, unworthy of the Mines and Mountains.

Indications of mining operations appeared first at Denver, where gold was first discovered at the junction of the South Platte and Cherry Creek. But the "diggings," or placer mines, here were soon worked out, and then the miners naturally ascended Cherry Creek to Clear Creek, and so into the heart of the mountains. All along North Clear Creek, you see where the stream has been turned aside, and its bed "panned" over, and as we approached Black Hawk we found a few miners still humbly at work this way. But placer-mining in Colorado had mostly been abandoned as no longer profitable, and now the chief labor and capital were applied to the quartz mines--the parents of the "diggings." These seemed to occur, more or less, all through the Rocky Mountains, wherever quartz cropped out; but the richest of them thus far had been found in the narrow defile about Central City. The sides of the ranges there had been "prospected" all over, until they seemed honey-combed or like pepper-boxes, so ragged and torn were they with the process. Here and there they were divided up into infinitesimal lots, rudely enclosed, embracing a few hundred feet or so, denoting mining "claims." Many of these had shafts sunk some distance, with a board up, proclaiming name of mine and the ownership thereof, but others were without these. The favorite mine in Colorado just then seemed to be the Gregory Consolidated, near Central City. We went down into this some three hundred feet, exploring its various galleries, and it seemed to be all that was represented. The gold here was so much diffused through the quartz as to be imperceptible to the eye, and was further mingled badly with silver, copper, and sulphur. The company had erected no mill as yet, but were contenting themselves with developing the lode, and getting out "pay-ore." Their plan was to sink the main shaft straight down on the lode, and every twenty feet or so follow up the indications by lateral galleries, to see whether the vein held out or not. So far it was doing well, and the ore continued of an excellent quality. But it was so difficult to reduce, there was no mill in Colorado that could save a fair proportion of the gold; so that what ore they cared to work was shipped east, or to Swansea, Wales, even, for reduction. The superintendent of the mine was a sturdy young Englishman, once a humble miner with his pick and candle, but afterwards sub-superintendent of a great silver mine in Mexico, and now for two or three years here--a man of rare energy and intelligence. No wonder the stock of the Gregory Consolidated was steadily rising, with such a policy and such a superintendent. Too many of the companies organized in the east were pursuing just the contrary course. They were putting up mills at once at great expense, with steam engines and stamps complete, and then when they came to sink down upon their veins, lo! they had no "pay-ore" there, or at least none worth working. A signal instance of this had occurred a year or two before. A New York Wall street Company had been organized, on a broad basis, and with great expectations. With a West Point ex-army officer superintendent and plenty of capital, their stock soon went soaring up like a rocket; but presently it came down again like a stick--_a la_ their superintendent during the war. He erected a splendid mill of dressed stone at a cost of thousands of dollars, and went in wildly for all the latest and most improved machinery; but when afterwards he came to test their lode thoroughly, alas! he discovered they had only a poor sickly trace of ore, that soon "petered out," and so that fine company of gold and silver miners incontinently collapsed--or, as Mr. Mantilini would have said, "went to the demnition bow-wows!" Machinery that cost the company thirty-three thousand dollars in New York, was afterwards sold by the Colorado sheriff for thirteen hundred dollars, to pay freight bills; and other property in proportion. Other instances were reported to us, but none quite so bad as this. But from the large number of mills and mines standing idle--fully fifty per cent., it seemed--we could well believe that mining machinery could be bought cheaper in Colorado than New York, and that steam-engines and boilers were a drug. A foundry-man beyond Golden City, we were told, found it more profitable to buy up old machinery and recast it, than to work a rich iron mine, though the former was scattered through the mountains and the latter was just at his door.

The trouble with the Colorado ores was, they were refractory sulphurets, which we had not yet learned how to reduce at a profit. They assayed very readily two hundred and even three hundred dollars per ton, or more; but when you came to mill them out in large quantities, you were lucky if you got twenty-five or thirty dollars per ton. The problem Colorado then wanted solved was how to desulphurize these rich ores of hers at a profit. Various "processes" were continually being tried at great expense, but none of them seemed yet to be the "success" she desired. Stamp-mills, with copper-plate and quicksilver amalgamators, seemed to be the process in use generally, though not saving over twenty-five per cent. of the precious metals usually. Many companies were using these and saving their "talings," or refuse, with the expectation of yet realizing goodly sums from working the "talings" over by some new process by-and-bye. A "process" just introduced was saving from twenty-five to fifty per cent. more from these "talings:" but it was too costly for general use, or, perhaps, to pay. Individual mine-owners and the lighter companies seemed mostly to have suspended, or like Mr. Micawber to be waiting for "something to turn up"--for the strong companies to go on and find the much coveted "new process," when they would resume operations. Another trouble evidently was the great number of companies organized to sell stock east, rather than to mine successfully. Companies, with a property worth a hundred thousand dollars, had frequently issued stock for a million, and of course could not expect to make regular dividends on such an overplus. On a basis of a hundred thousand dollars, or real value, with an experienced honest superintendent, they might have got along well, if content to creep at first and walk afterwards. But as a rule they had preferred to "water" their stock, after the most approved Sangrado method; and the result, after a year or two's operations, was disappointed stockholders and the old, old cry of "bogus" and "wild-cat." Many of the companies, too, were heavily in debt, and what was called in Colorado parlance "freezing out" was taking place largely. That is to say, a company gives a mortgage for say twenty thousand dollars on property worth perhaps a hundred thousand, or at least represented by that amount of stock. When due it is not met, the treasury being empty, and the stockholders discouraged from want of dividends, or by "bear" reports about the mine; whereupon the mortgage is foreclosed, and the "bear" directors buy the property in for a song, thus "freezing out" the feebler and more timid brethren. This operation may lack the essential feature of old-fashioned honesty, but is no doubt a paying one--pecuniarily--for the new owners, who can now well afford to go bravely on. "Others may sink; but what's the odds, so we apples swim!"

No doubt Colorado is rich, immensely rich, in mineral resources--gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, etc.,--but she was scarcely making much decided headway as a mining community, so far as could be seen, in 1866. Considerable of her population, indeed, had gone off to Montana and Idaho, to the reputed rich gold-fields there, and many of the rest were waiting patiently for the Pacific Railroad and a market. Great results were anticipated from the oncoming of the railroad, and it is to be hoped she has realized them. Her yield of the precious metals in 1862, it was estimated by good authority, amounted to ten millions of dollars; but in 1863 it fell to eight millions, in 1864 to five millions, and in 1865 to four millions. Ross Browne, in 1866, in his report of _Mineral Resources of the United States_, with characteristic exaggeration, estimated her yield for that year at seventeen millions; but more accurate observers regarded this as a California joke, and pronounced his estimate at least four or five times too high. The large yield in 1862 represented the maximum from gulch or placer mining, and the soft outcroppings of the quartz veins. But in 1866 placer mining, as I have said, had mostly ceased, and our quartz-miners had to go down so deep, and then got only the hardest and most refractory sulphurets, that the business greatly languished. Yet, it was plain to be seen, the gold and the silver were all there, in inexhaustible quantities, practically speaking; or as Mr. Lincoln once remarked, in speaking of our western mines, "We there hold the Treasury of the world!" All Colorado wanted, as elsewhere said, was the right "process" to subdue these rebellious sulphurets and compel them to release their imprisoned deities. Science surely holds the key somewhere, and waits only the coming man to hand it over to him. Millions of our countrymen are watching and praying for him. A half a continent calls for him. And when this coming man does come, who shall estimate the untold treasures he will here unlock and outpour upon the world! He will but have to strike the naked rocks, and abundant streams of wealth will gush forth. He will but have to touch the rugged mountain sides, and gold and silver by the million will obey his bidding--enough not only to pay our own National Debt, but the National Debts of the world. Let Colorado, then, be of good courage. The Pacific Railroad will cheapen supplies, and swell the volume of her immigration. The Yankee hand and brain are busily at work, conning over her knotty problem; and we may be sure, that the right hour will bring the necessary man.

From Central City we crossed the range at an altitude of nine thousand feet above the sea, and thence descended to Idaho, on South Clear Creek. A fine hotel here, in good view of the Snowy range, boasted itself the best in Colorado, and we found none better. Here also were several fine mineral springs, that bubble up quite near to each other, and yet are all of different temperatures. A bath-house had been erected, where you might take a plunge in hot or cold water, as you chose; the walks were romantic, with a possibility of deer or bear; the sights, what with ravine, and ridge, and peak, were magnificent; and Idaho, already something of a summer resort, expected yet to become the Saratoga of Colorado. Up South Clear Creek, above Idaho, were the new mining districts of Georgetown and Mill City, then but recently discovered and reputed quite rich; but we had not time to visit them. Down South Clear Creek, and thence to Denver, is a wild and surprising ride of forty-five miles, that well repays you. Much of the way Clear Creek roars and tumbles by the roadside, with the rocky walls of its cañon towering far above you; and when at length you cross the last range and prepare to descend, you catch a distant view of Denver and the Plains, that has few if any equals in all that region. The sun was fast declining, as we rounded the last crag or shoulder of the range, and the Plains--outstretched, illimitable, everlasting--were all before us, flooded with light as far as the eye could reach, while the mountains already in shade were everywhere projecting their lengthening shadows across the foot-hills, like grim phantoms of the night. A cloudless sky overarched the whole. Denver gleamed and sparkled in the midst twenty miles away, the brightest jewel of the Plains; and beyond, the Platte flashed onward to the east a thread of silver. It was a superb and glorious scene, and for an hour afterward, as we descended the range, we caught here and there exquisite views of it, through the opening pine and fir trees, that transferred to canvas would surely have made the fortune of any painter. With our Pacific Railroad completed, our artists must take time to study up the Rocky Mountains, with all their fine effects of light and shade--of wide extent and far perspective, of clear atmosphere, blue sky, and purple haze--and then their landscapes may well delight and charm the world.

Mining is, of course, the chief business of all that region, from the Missouri to the Mountains, and the habits and customs of the miner prevail everywhere. He digs and tunnels pretty much as he wills--under roads, beneath houses, below towns--and all things, more or less, are made subservient to his will. His free-and-easy ways mark social and political life, and his slang--half Mexican, half miner--is everywhere the language of the masses. A "square" meal is his usual phrase for a full or first-rate one. A "shebang" means any structure, from a hotel to a shanty. An "outfit" is a very general term, meaning anything you may happen to have, from a stamp-mill complete to a tooth-pick--a suit of clothes or a revolver--a twelve-ox team or a velocipede. A "divide" means a ridge or water-shed between two valleys or depressions. A "cañon" is Mexican or Spanish for a deep defile or gorge in the mountains. A "ranch," ditto, means a farm, or a sort of half-tavern and half-farm, as the country needs there. To "vamose the ranch" means to clear out, to depart, to cut stick, to absquatulate. A "corral," ditto, means an enclosed horse or cattle-yard. To "corral" a man or stock, therefore, means to corner him or it. To go down to "bed-rock," means the very bottom of things. "Panned-out" means exhausted, used-up, bankrupt. "Pay-streak" means a vein of gold or silver quartz, that it will _pay_ to work. When it ceases to pay, it is said to "peter out." Said a miner one day at dinner, at a hotel in Central City, to a traveller from the east, "I say, stranger," pointing to a piece of meat by his side, "is there a _pay-streak_ in that beef thar?" He wanted to know if there was a piece of it worth eating or not. The short phrase "You bet!" is pure Californice, and has followed our miners thence eastward across the continent. We struck it first on the Missouri, and thence found it used everywhere and among all classes, to express by different intonations a great variety of meanings. For example, meeting a man you remark:

"It is a fine day, my friend!"

He answers promptly and decidedly, "You _bet!_"

You continue, "It is a great country you have out here!"

He responds, "You BET _ye!_" sharp and quick.

"A good many mills standing idle, though!"

"Wa'll, yes, too many of them! You bet!" with a knowing shake of the head.

"Miners making much now-a-days?"

"Oh, yes! Some of us, a heap! _You_ bet!" rather timid.

"Going back to the states one of these days?"

"When I make my pile! _You_ BET!" firm and decided.

"Get married then, I suppose?"

"Won't I? Just that! _You_ BET _ye_!" with his hat up, his eyes wide open, and his face all aglow with honest pride and warm memory of "The girl I left behind me!"

In Central City they told us a story of a miner, who was awakened one night by a noise at his window, and found it to be a burglar trying to get in. Slipping quietly out of bed, he waited patiently by the window until the sash was well up, and the burglar tolerably in, when he placed his revolver against the fellow's head, and sententiously remarked, "Now you _git_!" The story ran, the burglar looking quietly up surveyed the situation, with the cold steel against his brow, and as sententiously replied, as he backed out and dropped to the ground, "_You_ BET!"

Footnotes:

[4] See Appendix.

[5] This road since built and now in operation.

Chapter VI.

Among The Mountains.

The Plains after awhile became somewhat of a bore, they are so vast and outstretched, and you long for a change, something to break the monotony. To us this came one evening, just beyond Fort Morgan, when a hundred and fifty miles away, just peeping above the horizon, we descried the cone-like summit of Long's Peak, all pink and rosy in the sunset. "Driver, isn't that the Mountains?" said some one. "You bet!" was his answer, of course. "'Tisn't often you can see the Peak this fur; but it is mighty clar to-day!" The night soon afterwards shut down upon us, during which we bowled rapidly along from station to station, and the next morning were early awake. Soon the sun rose bright and clear; but the air was keen, with a stiff breeze eastward in our teeth. We were down in a wide depression of the Plains; but presently we rose up out of it, and as we struck the summit of the "divide," lo, the Rocky Mountains were before us in all their grandeur and sublimity. To the north rose Long's Peak, fourteen thousand feet above the sea, heaven-kissing, but with his night-cap still on; to the south, was Pike's Peak, eleven thousand feet above the sea, snow-crowned; while between, a hundred miles or more, swelled and towered the Mountains--at the base mere foot-hills, then ridge mounting on ridge and peak on peak, until over and above all the Snowy Range cropped out sublime. Patches of pines dotted their surface here and there, but the general effect was that of nakedness and barrenness. Clouds hung about their summits, or lingered along their sides; but the uprising sun soon dissipated these, or sent them careering aloft, as if bound for heaven. In the course of the morning we whirled into Denver, and there for a week or more--by sunlight, by moonlight--the Mountains were ever before us, in all their thousand varieties of tint and shadow. They never seemed precisely the same. Some new point was ever looming up, or flashing out--and yet they always realized one's best conceptions of beauty, grandeur, vastness, and sublimity.

Subsequently, accepting an invitation to accompany Gen. Sherman and Gov. Cumming to Southern Colorado and an Indian treaty there, we spent nearly a month among the Rocky Mountains, following down their eastern base and crossing them to Fort Garland, some two hundred and fifty miles, and thence returning to Denver again through the heart of them, _via_ San Luis Park, Homan's Park, and South Park. This trip we made by ambulance, camping out at night, and rationing ourselves, as there were no stages on the route and very few settlements. Our little party, by the addition of officers and others at Denver, had swelled to seven, exclusive of cook and teamsters. Our "outfit" consisted of two four-horse ambulances and an army-wagon, with spare animals for saddle or other purposes, as occasion required. We took a tent along, but seldom had occasion to use it. We had blankets and buffalo robes for the night; some stray books and magazines for the day, when weary of the scenery; pipes and tobacco for all; and other supplies, it seemed, _ad infinitum_. In the matter of arms, what with our repeating-rifles and revolvers for Indians, and a brace of fowling-pieces for game, our ambulances were travelling arsenals. And from reports on leaving Denver, (Sept. 13th) we did not know but we should want all, and more. With the usual exaggeration of the border, the story current there was, that a Mexican belonging to one of the settlements down below had quarrelled with a Ute about a squaw, and wound up by killing him; that the Utes were consequently up in arms, stealing stock and murdering the inhabitants; that Fort Garland was already practically besieged; and that the United States was of "no account, no how," because we did not send more troops to Colorado. However, we started for Garland, well-armed as above; we did not meet a hostile Indian on the way; and when we arrived there, we found there hadn't been a settler molested, or mule stolen; and the whole yarn had come from a Ute found dead, supposed killed by lightning. When first discovered, near one of the settlements, the Utes were considerably ruffled; but when the post-surgeon at Garland and their medicine-man had examined him and found no marks of violence, the chiefs laid their heads together and sagely concluded the Great Spirit had called him.

Our course from Denver was about due South, following the trend of the mountains, and always near them. For several days our road was substantially over Fremont's old trail of 1843, across the high "divide" between the Platte and Arkansas, and so down the dashing _Fontaine qui Boulli_ to the Arkansas. This "divide" bears an unenviable reputation, as a storm-region. Coloradoans aver, that it rains, hails, snows, or blows there, when it is fair weather all around it, and we were warned of it accordingly. It is a high rolling region, running well up into the mountains, with Pike's Peak frowning over it, and I suppose the configuration of the country is such as to attract and concentrate storms there. We made haste to get across it, but sure enough encountered both rain and hail, though we found the country both north and south of it basking in a dreamy, autumnal atmosphere, that seemed like the very wine of life. That night we camped near "Dirty Woman's Ranch," close into the mountains, and slept delightfully in a hay-yard. The sun went down in a cloudless sky, transfiguring the snow-clad summit of Pike's Peak with a glory all its own, whose pink and crimson faded into purple, and this again to blue, as the day died out. So, too, the rest of the range, from purple and blue, came out sharp and black against the star-thick sky, and night shut down upon the Plains with scarcely a sound to break the silence.

During the day, the blank monotony of the Plains was broken by numerous "buttes," some of which were very surprising. The chief one, "Castle-Rock," was an abrupt precipitous mass, well bastioned and castellated, that rose sheer into the air several hundred feet, as if the work of hammer and trowel. At a distance, it seemed almost squarely perpendicular, but two of our party, who had galloped on ahead, found an accessible path to the summit on its southeast side. As we drove up abreast of it, we descried them on its dizzy edge, but took them to be eagles or buzzards, until they out with their handkerchiefs and fired off their pistols. The smoke curled away on the breezy air, but the sound was inaudible down by the roadside as we drove by. These "buttes" dot the country over there for miles, standing solitary and alone--wholly disconnected from each other--and are a strange feature of the Rocky Mountain region.

The next day we struck Monument Creek and followed this down to the _Fontaine qui Bouilli_. Here the country for miles is marked by great masses of sandstone and limestone, chiseled by wind and rain into the most fantastic shapes and forms. Some are slender columns of gray or red rock, a hundred feet or more in height, worn and smooth; while others are cut and carved so curiously, that it seems they must be the deft handiwork of man. Right under the shadow of Pike's Peak, they seem to culminate, and here is Colorado's famous Garden of the Gods. Entering from the roadside we passed through a little ravine, that rapidly widened into a _bijou_ of a valley, and there near its centre uprose two tremendous rocks, red dashed with gray, six hundred feet long by two hundred high, tapering to a knife-like edge. They were both inaccessible to man, but the elements had bored a hole through the summit of one, that looked for all the world as if a round shot or shell had knocked its way through there. A score of swallows were twittering about this, as we passed by, and their nests were visible all up and down the rocks. A little distance off stood three red sandstones, ten or twelve feet in diameter, by a hundred or more high, like the surviving columns of some ruined temple--one somewhat splintered and shattered, but the others still uplifting their capitals sublime against the sky. Farther on the whole country here is studded for miles, with these wedge-shaped and columnar masses of red and gray rock, some even on a grander scale, as though it were a cemetery of Titans, marked by Cyclopean tombstones. It is a vast meadow, rich with herbage, with Monument Creek meandering through it, vocal with the song of birds, the whole lying close up under the overshadowing Mountains; while over all, breaking sharp and clear against the faultless sky, stands Pike's Peak, imperial in his majesty, dark below with pines and firs, but his bald head crowned with eternal snows, looking calmly down, as if God's sentinel keeping watch and ward over all below. Altogether the grouping of the landscape there is very fine, as if the gods had done their best; and on the glorious morning when we saw it, beneath a perfect September sky, we thought Colorado had indeed here much to be supremely proud of.

Some three miles farther on, near the banks of the _Fontaine qui Bouilli_, which here comes boiling down from the foot of Pike's Peak, there are several fine natural soda-springs. They come bubbling up on either side of the stream from the far depths below, and their overflow during the long ages has deposited large rocks of calcareous tufa or carbonate of soda all about them. We tried this soda-water, and found it as cool, and as sharp and titillating as that from a city-fountain; and when treated with an acid, it effervesced and vanished quite as freely. H---- and B---- tried it with lemons and whiskey and reported their cocktails quite unequalled since leaving New York. Col. Chivington, of Sand Creek memory, had recently purchased these springs and the land adjacent for three thousand dollars; but he was now asking ten thousand, though there had not been a dollar expended for improvements yet. Combined with Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and all the unique and romantic scenery from there to Denver, as well as the general Plains and Mountains, the investment did not seem to be a bad one, and no doubt will pay handsomely some day. But it was then waiting the completion of the Pacific Railroad, and the in-pouring of population, that all Coloradoans then devoutly hoped and prayed for.[6]

Just beyond the Soda Springs, stood or rather _slept_ Colorado City. We had been so unfortunate as to break our ambulance-tongue in pulling out of a mud-hole, and halted there to have a new one made. In the days of 1857-60, when mining centred at Pike's Peak, Colorado City was the Denver of southwestern Colorado, and must have been a place of considerable importance. But the "diggings" there long since gave out, and C. C. was now in a bad way. Corner-lots were for sale, dirt-cheap. It had plenty of empty shanties, but scarcely any population; and what it had, were the sleepiest-looking Coloradoans we had yet seen anywhere. The "hotel" or tavern, was forlorn and dirty; the people, idle and listless; and the "City," as a whole, was evidently hastening fast to the status of Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Cañon City, farther up in the mountains, they told us, was even worse off--having no inhabitants at all. It had good buildings, some even of brick and stone, equal indeed to any in Colorado; but all stood empty, like "some banquet-hall deserted," and the once busy "City" was now as silent as Thebes or Petræ. Such is life in our mining regions. Population comes and goes, as restless as the sea, according as the "diggings" promise good "pay-dirt" or bad. And what are prosperous and busy centres this year, next year may become empty and deserted.[7] At sunset we went into camp on the banks of the _Fontaine qui Bouilli_, while a snow-squall was careering around Pike's Peak. Several of these had been prancing about his summit during the afternoon, and about five P. M., one of them swept down over the foothills and valley, with far out-stretched wings, giving us a taste of its icy breath as we journeyed by. At sunset the hues along the mountains and among the snow-peaks were magnificent and glorious; but the air became keen and nipping as night fell, and all the evening we hugged the fire closely. Just before dark, while supper was cooking, two or three of us tried the _Fontaine qui Bouilli_ for trout, and caught--not a nibble even!

Soon after leaving Colorado City the mountains trend away to the southwest, while the road to Fort Garland continues on down the _Fontaine qui Bouilli_ to the Arkansas. Fording this at Pueblo, and subsequently its two affluents, the Greenhorn and the Huerfano, you again strike the mountains, a hundred miles farther south, at the foot of Sangre del Christo Pass. The high ridges or "divides" between all of these streams are barren and sterile, to an extent little imagined in the east; but the streams themselves are bordered by broad valleys, rich and fertile, that as a rule need only irrigation to produce luxuriantly. In some seasons they do not require even this, as their proximity to the mountains affords them rains enough. Still, no farmer is safe there without his system of _acequias_ or water-ditches, to irrigate if necessary; and we found these everywhere constructed, if not in use, where settlements had been made. In all of these valleys we already had scattered ranches--some of them very large--and raised wheat, barley, corn, oats, etc. in considerable quantities. Colorado had formerly imported all her grain and flour from the Missouri, at an enormous cost; but latterly she had drawn large supplies from these fertile valleys, and in '66 considered herself about self-sustaining. Not more than one-tenth, or less, of her arable land here, however, seemed to be under cultivation, and agriculture even then was of the rudest and simplest. The ranchmen were mainly Americans or Germans, but the labor was all performed by Mexican peons, subjected for generations to but one remove from slavery. It was the threshing season, and in many places we saw them treading out their wheat and barley by mules, with a Greaser on the back of each, lazily whiffing his cigarrito, while his donkey dozed around. Elsewhere, their threshing done, we saw them winnowing their grain by hand, as the breeze chanced along. We did not see or hear of a threshing-machine or a fanning-mill in the whole region there, and doubt if there was one. The Mexicans do not comprehend these nineteenth century new-fangled notions, and will have none of them. They prefer by far their old-time _dolce far niente_. _Festina lente_ is their national maxim, and your thorough-bred peon would choose a broncho rather than a locomotive any day. And naturally enough, the American settlers here, we found, were mostly from the south, and during the war had been none too ardent for the Union.

Most of the farms here were large in size, and in crossing the Greenhorn we passed through a noble ranch, twelve miles wide by eighteen long, owned by a Mr. Zan Hincklin. In '65 he sold his crop of grain for eighty thousand dollars, and in '66 expected to do even better. He had on hand a thousand horses, three thousand head of cattle, and six thousand sheep, all of which he grazed the year round. He lived very plainly, in a rude adobe hut, that we should think hardly fit for a canal-laborer east; but was as hospitable and generous as a prince. We had scarcely gone into camp, on the banks of the rippling Greenhorn, before he sent us over butter, eggs, and vegetables, and bade us welcome to his heart and home. He acquired his great estate by marrying one of the half-breed daughters of the celebrated John Brent, who used to hunt and trap all through this region, and who lived so long among the Indians that he became himself half Red-Skin. He died possessed of vast tracts of land here, acquired chiefly through trading with the Indians, but his children it appeared, as a rule, had turned out poorly. One of his sons had returned to Indian life, joining a wandering tribe, and others still hung about the settlements, of small account to anybody.

From the Arkansas, the country gradually but constantly ascends, until you strike the mountains again at the foot of Sangre del Christo Pass. Here you follow up a dashing rivulet, that courses away to the Huerfano, and advantage is taken of a depression in the main ridge to cross into San Luis Park. We camped the night before in a sheltered nook among the foot-hills, surrounded on three sides by gnarled piñon trees, while the fourth opened on a little plateau sloping down to a noisy brook, that afforded water and grass in abundance. The next morning we breakfasted early, and were off up the Pass soon after sunrise. The morning air was nipping, and as we advanced we found the mists rolling down the mountains, and so off over the Plains eastward. The teams being a little slow that morning in packing up and getting off, some of us concluded to walk on; but we had not proceeded far, before some one suggested this might be dangerous, as Indians were reported about, and our arms were all behind in the ambulances. Halting, therefore, for the rest to come up, two of us then secured our Spencers and six-shooters, and mounting one a horse and the other a mule pushed on ahead again. The ascent, though gentle, we found nevertheless very constant, and gradually the ambulances dropped much behind. The road led over a shelving plateau, and up a pretty sharp hill, and then plunged by a rapid descent into a little valley again. Here we met several men, with a drove of indifferent cattle and sheep, _en route_ from Culebra to Denver and a market. Climbing out of this valley, we struck a sharp ascent, that led southward along and up the ridge, and then turning west by south struck straight across the summit. As we raised the summit, a keen, fierce wind met us from the west, and soon set our teeth to chattering in unison with it. On the tip-top we found a contractor's train, _en route_ to Fort Garland with supplies, doubling up ox-teams and doing its "level best" to forge slowly ahead. The summit or ridge, the tip-top of the Rocky Mountains--the very backbone of America here--we found only a few hundred yards across; and then we came out on the western slope, with all the glories of the San Luis Park nestling at our feet, or uprising gorgeously before us. Below, the Park lay wrapped in a dreamy haze, with the Sangre del Christo creek flashing onward through it; above, peak on peak--huge, snow-white, and sublime--rimmed it round, as with a crown. Over all, hung one of those blue and faultless skies, for which the Rocky Mountains are so world-famous, with the sun sweeping majestically through it, while God himself seemed ready to speak on every side. This was to the west. Turning to the east, the view there seemed, if possible, even more grand and sublime. Peak and ridge, plateau and foot-hill, stretched away beneath us; in the distance the brace of Spanish Peaks, two bold "buttes" passed the day before, shot up abruptly six thousand feet into the sky, from the dead level of the Plains around them; while beyond and around to the dim horizon, east, north, and south, for hundreds of miles, outstretched the illimitable Plains. The elevation of the Pass is given, as about ten thousand feet above the sea. At our feet, the fog was breaking up and rolling off eastward in sullen masses, which the morning sun gilded with glory, or here and there pierced through and through down to the earth beneath. Soon it passed away into airy clouds, careering along the sky, and presently vanished altogether. And then the Plains! The Plains! How their immense outstretch absorbed and overwhelmed the eye! It was not the ocean, but something much grander and vaster, than even the ocean seems. If you could view the sea from the same altitude, doubtless the impression would be much the same. But what is the loftiest mast-head, compared with the summit of Sangre del Christo? The grandeur and sublimity of the scene awed one into silence, as if in the presence of Deity himself, and the great and holy thoughts of that hour well repaid us for all our toil and fatigue. Say what we may, there is something gracious and ennobling in such mountain scenery, which men can illy dispense with. How it deepens and widens one's feelings! How it broadens and uplifts one's thoughts! How it strengthens--emboldens--one's manhood! What Switzerland is to Europe, and New England to the Atlantic States, this and more, the whole Rocky Mountain region will yet become to America.

Descending the mountains westward, a ride of a mile or two brought us to a spring, where a Mexican was taking his noon-day meal of tortillas, while his inevitable mule was cropping the grass near by. H. dismounted and scooped up a drink with his hands, Indian fashion, but I was not yet thirsty enough for that. A mile or two farther, still descending, brought us to the head of Sangre del Christo creek, a dashing rivulet fed by snow streams, that runs thence to the Rio Grande. A winding defile or cañon, of steady though not very rapid descent, affords a bed-way down the Pass and out into the San Luis Park, and down this the wild little creek shoots very serpentinely. It crosses the road no less than twenty-six times in ten miles, and constantly reminds you of the famous Yankee fence, which was made up of such crooked rails, that when the pigs crept through it they never exactly knew whether they were inside or out! We jogged leisurely down the creek, until we judged we were some six or seven miles from the summit, and perhaps half way down the mountain, when we halted for the teams to come up. The wind blew sharply up the Pass still, though it was now much after noon, and we found the shelter of a neighboring ravine very welcome. Here we unsaddled our animals, and turned them loose to graze. They fed up and down the ravine, cropping the rich herbage there, but would never stray over a hundred yards or so away, when they would turn and graze back to us again. On such mountain trips saddle-animals become attached to their riders, and will seldom leave of their own accord. So, also, they are unerring sentinels, and always announce the approach of Indians or others with a neigh or bray. Building a royal fire with the dry fir-trees there, we next spread our saddle-blankets on the ground, and then with our saddles under our heads, and our feet Indian-fashion to the fire, smoked and talked until the rest arrived. About two P. M. I noticed Kate (my mule) stop grazing and snuff the air, very inquiringly; presently, with a whisk of her tail and a salutatory bray, she darted down the ravine,