Roughing It
by Mark Twain · English · Gutenberg #3177 · 964,255 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Roughing It
Author: Mark Twain
Release date: July 3, 2004 [eBook #3177]
Most recently updated: March 31, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3177
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ROUGHING IT
By Mark Twain
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PREFATORY.
This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history
or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of
variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting
reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or
goad him with science. Still, there is information in the volume;
information concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far
West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the
ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own
eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the silver-mining
fever in Nevada—a curious episode, in some respects; the only one, of
its peculiar kind, that has occurred in the land; and the only one,
indeed, that is likely to occur in it.
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in
the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped:
information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar
of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would
give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I
calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom.
Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not
justification.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. My Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada—I Envy His
Prospective Adventures—Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him—My
Contentment Complete—Packed in One Hour—Dreams and Visions—On the
Missouri River—A Bully Boat
CHAPTER II. Arrive at St. Joseph—Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage
Allowed—Farewell to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats—Armed to the Teeth—The
“Allen”—A Cheerful Weapon—Persuaded to Buy a Mule—Schedule of
Luxuries—We Leave the “States”—“Our Coach”—Mails for the Indians—Between
a Wink and an Earthquake—A Modern Sphynx and How She Entertained Us—A
Sociable Heifer
CHAPTER III. “The Thoroughbrace is Broke”—Mails Delivered
Properly—Sleeping Under Difficulties—A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on
Business—A Modern Gulliver—Sage-brush—Overcoats as an Article of
Diet—Sad Fate of a Camel—Warning to Experimenters
CHAPTER IV. Making Our Bed—Assaults by the Unabridged—At a Station—Our
Driver a Great and Shining Dignitary—Strange Place for a
Frontyard—Accommodations—Double Portraits—An Heirloom—Our Worthy
Landlord—“Fixings and Things”—An Exile—Slumgullion—A Well Furnished
Table—The Landlord Astonished—Table Etiquette—Wild Mexican Mules—Stage-
coaching and Railroading
CHAPTER V. New Acquaintances—The Cayote—A Dog’s Experiences—A Disgusted
Dog—The Relatives of the Cayote—Meals Taken Away from Home
CHAPTER VI. The Division Superintendent—The Conductor—The Driver—One
Hundred and Fifty Miles’ Drive Without Sleep—Teaching a Subordinate—Our
Old Friend Jack and a Pilgrim—Ben Holliday Compared to Moses
CHAPTER VII. Overland City—Crossing the Platte—Bemis’s Buffalo
Hunt—Assault by a Buffalo—Bemis’s Horse Goes Crazy—An Impromptu Circus—A
New Departure—Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree—Escapes Finally by a
Wonderful Method
CHAPTER VIII. The Pony Express—Fifty Miles Without Stopping—“Here he
Comes”—Alkali Water—Riding an Avalanche—Indian Massacre
CHAPTER IX. Among the Indians—An Unfair Advantage—Laying on our Arms—A
Midnight Murder—Wrath of Outlaws—A Dangerous, yet Valuable Citizen
CHAPTER X. History of Slade—A Proposed Fist-fight—Encounter with
Jules—Paradise of Outlaws—Slade as Superintendent—As Executioner—A
Doomed Whisky Seller—A Prisoner—A Wife’s Bravery—An Ancient Enemy
Captured—Enjoying a Luxury—Hob-nobbing with Slade—Too Polite—A Happy
Escape
CHAPTER XI. Slade in Montana—“On a Spree”—In Court—Attack on a
Judge—Arrest by the Vigilantes—Turn out of the Miners—Execution of
Slade—Lamentations of His Wife—Was Slade a Coward?
CHAPTER XII. A Mormon Emigrant Train—The Heart of the Rocky
Mountains—Pure Saleratus—A Natural Ice-House—An Entire Inhabitant—In
Sight of “Eternal Snow”—The South Pass—The Parting Streams—An Unreliable
Letter Carrier—Meeting of Old Friends—A Spoiled Watermelon—Down the
Mountain—A Scene of Desolation—Lost in the Dark—Unnecessary
Advice—U.S. Troops and Indians—Sublime Spectacle—Another Delusion
Dispelled—Among the Angels
CHAPTER XIII. Mormons and Gentiles—Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect on
Bemis—Salt Lake City—A Great Contrast—A Mormon Vagrant—Talk with a
Saint—A Visit to the “King”—A Happy Simile
CHAPTER XIV. Mormon Contractors—How Mr. Street Astonished Them—The Case
Before Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it—Polygamy Viewed from a
New Position
CHAPTER XV. A Gentile Den—Polygamy Discussed—Favorite Wife and D.
4—Hennery for Retired Wives—Children Need Marking—Cost of a Gift to No.
6—A Penny-whistle Gift and its Effects—Fathering the Foundlings—It
Resembled Him—The Family Bedstead
CHAPTER XVI. The Mormon Bible—Proofs of its Divinity—Plagiarism of its
Authors—Story of Nephi—Wonderful Battle—Kilkenny Cats Outdone
CHAPTER XVII. Three Sides to all Questions—Everything “A
Quarter”—Shriveled Up—Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount—“Forty-
Niners”—Above Par—Real Happiness
CHAPTER XVIII. Alkali Desert—Romance of Crossing Dispelled—Alkali
Dust—Effect on the Mules—Universal Thanksgiving
CHAPTER XIX. The Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of
Africa—Food, Life and Characteristics—Cowardly Attack on a Stage Coach—A
Brave Driver—The Noble Red Man
CHAPTER XX. The Great American Desert—Forty Miles on Bones—Lakes Without
Outlets—Greely’s Remarkable Ride—Hank Monk, the Renowned Driver—Fatal
Effects of “Corking” a Story—Bald-Headed Anecdote
CHAPTER XXI. Alkali Dust—Desolation and Contemplation—Carson City—Our
Journey Ended—We are Introduced to Several Citizens—A Strange Rebuke—A
Washoe Zephyr at Play—Its Office Hours—Governor’s Palace—Government
Offices—Our French Landlady Bridget O’Flannigan—Shadow Secrets—Cause for
a Disturbance at Once—The Irish Brigade—Mrs. O’Flannigan’s Boarders—The
Surveying Expedition—Escape of the Tarantulas
CHAPTER XXII. The Son of a Nabob—Start for Lake Tahoe—Splendor of the
Views—Trip on the Lake—Camping Out—Reinvigorating Climate—Clearing a
Tract of Land—Securing a Title—Outhouse and Fences
CHAPTER XXIII. A Happy Life—Lake Tahoe and its Moods—Transparency of the
Waters—A Catastrophe—Fire! Fire!—A Magnificent Spectacle—Homeless
Again—We take to the Lake—A Storm—Return to Carson
CHAPTER XXIV. Resolve to Buy a Horse—Horsemanship in Carson—A
Temptation—Advice Given Me Freely—I Buy the Mexican Plug—My First Ride—A
Good Bucker—I Loan the Plug—Experience of Borrowers—Attempts to
Sell—Expense of the Experiment—A Stranger Taken In
CHAPTER XXV. The Mormons in Nevada—How to Persuade a Loan from
Them—Early History of the Territory—Silver Mines Discovered—The New
Territorial Government—A Foreign One and a Poor One—Its Funny Struggles
for Existence—No Credit, no Cash—Old Abe Currey Sustains it and its
Officers—Instructions and Vouchers—An Indian’s Endorsement—Toll-Gates
CHAPTER XXVI. The Silver Fever—State of the Market—Silver Bricks—Tales
Told—Off for the Humboldt Mines
CHAPTER XXVII. Our manner of going—Incidents of the Trip—A Warm but Too
Familiar a Bedfellow—Mr. Ballou Objects—Sunshine amid Clouds—Safely
Arrived
CHAPTER XXVIII. Arrive at the Mountains—Building Our Cabin—My First
Prospecting Tour—My First Gold Mine—Pockets Filled With
Treasures—Filtering the News to My Companions—The Bubble Pricked—All Not
Gold That Glitters
CHAPTER XXIX. Out Prospecting—A Silver Mine At Last—Making a Fortune
With Sledge and Drill—A Hard Road to Travel—We Own in Claims—A Rocky
Country
CHAPTER XXX. Disinterested Friends—How “Feet” Were Sold—We Quit
Tunnelling—A Trip to Esmeralda—My Companions—An Indian Prophesy—A
Flood—Our Quarters During It
CHAPTER XXXI. The Guests at “Honey Lake Smith’s”—“Bully Old
Arkansas”—“Our Landlord”—Determined to Fight—The Landlord’s Wife—The
Bully Conquered by Her—Another Start—Crossing the Carson—A Narrow
Escape—Following Our Own Track—A New Guide—Lost in the Snow
CHAPTER XXXII. Desperate Situation—Attempts to Make a Fire—Our Horses
leave us—We Find Matches—One, Two, Three and the Last—No Fire—Death
Seems Inevitable—We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives—Discarded Vices—We Forgive
Each Other—An Affectionate Farewell—The Sleep of Oblivion
CHAPTER XXXIII. Return of Consciousness—Ridiculous Developments—A
Station House—Bitter Feelings—Fruits of Repentance—Resurrected Vices
CHAPTER XXXIV. About Carson—General Buncombe—Hyde vs. Morgan—How Hyde
Lost His Ranch—The Great Landslide Case—The Trial—General Buncombe in
Court—A Wonderful Decision—A Serious Afterthought
CHAPTER XXXV. A New Travelling Companion—All Full and No
Accommodations—How Captain Nye found Room—and Caused Our Leaving to be
Lamented—The Uses of Tunnelling—A Notable Example—We Go into the “Claim”
Business and Fail—At the Bottom
CHAPTER XXXVI. A Quartz Mill—Amalgamation—“Screening Tailings”—First
Quartz Mill in Nevada—Fire Assay—A Smart Assayer—I stake for an advance
CHAPTER XXXVII. The Whiteman Cement Mine—Story of its Discovery—A Secret
Expedition—A Nocturnal Adventure—A Distressing Position—A Failure and a
Week’s Holiday
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mono Lake—Shampooing Made Easy—Thoughtless Act of Our
Dog and the Results—Lye Water—Curiosities of the Lake—Free Hotel—Some
Funny Incidents a Little Overdrawn
CHAPTER XXXIX. Visit to the Islands in Lake Mono—Ashes and
Desolation—Life Amid Death Our Boat Adrift—A Jump For Life—A Storm On
the Lake—A Mass of Soap Suds—Geological Curiosities—A Week On the
Sierras—A Narrow Escape From a Funny Explosion—“Stove Heap Gone”
CHAPTER XL. The “Wide West” Mine—It is “Interviewed” by Higbie—A Blind
Lead—Worth a Million—We are Rich At Last—Plans for the Future
CHAPTER XLI. A Rheumatic Patient—Day Dreams—An Unfortunate Stumble—I
Leave Suddenly—Another Patient—Higbie in the Cabin—Our Balloon
Bursted—Worth Nothing—Regrets and Explanations—Our Third Partner
CHAPTER XLII. What to do Next?—Obstacles I Had Met With—“Jack of All
Trades”—Mining Again—Target Shooting—I Turn City Editor—I Succeed Finely
CHAPTER XLIII. My Friend Boggs—The School Report—Boggs Pays Me An Old
Debt—Virginia City
CHAPTER XLIV. Flush Times—Plenty of Stock—Editorial Puffing—Stocks Given
Me—Salting Mines—A Tragedian In a New Role
CHAPTER XLV. Flush Times Continue—Sanitary Commission Fund—Wild
Enthusiasm of the People—Would not wait to Contribute—The Sanitary Flour
Sack—It is Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton—Final Reception in
Virginia—Results of the Sale—A Grand Total
CHAPTER XLVI. The Nabobs of Those Days—John Smith as a Traveler—Sudden
Wealth—A Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse—A Smart Telegraph Operator—A Nabob
in New York City—Charters an Omnibus—“Walk in, It’s All Free”—“You Can’t
Pay a Cent”—“Hold On, Driver, I Weaken”—Sociability of New Yorkers
CHAPTER XLVII. Buck Fanshaw’s Death—The Cause Thereof—Preparations for
His Burial—Scotty Briggs the Committee Man—He Visits the Minister—Scotty
Can’t Play His Hand—The Minister Gets Mixed—Both Begin to See—“All Down
Again But Nine”—Buck Fanshaw as a Citizen—How To “Shook Your Mother”—The
Funeral—Scotty Briggs as a Sunday School Teacher
CHAPTER XLVIII. The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada—The Prominent Men
of the County—The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen—Trial by Jury—Specimen
Jurors—A Private Grave Yard—The Desperadoes—Who They Killed—Waking up
the Weary Passenger—Satisfaction Without Fighting
CHAPTER XLIX. Fatal Shooting Affray—Robbery and Desperate Affray—A
Specimen City Official—A Marked Man—A Street Fight—Punishment of Crime
CHAPTER L. Captain Ned Blakely—Bill Nookes Receives Desired
Information—Killing of Blakely’s Mate—A Walking Battery—Blakely Secures
Nookes—Hang First and Be Tried Afterwards—Captain Blakely as a
Chaplain—The First Chapter of Genesis Read at a Hanging—Nookes
Hung—Blakely’s Regrets
CHAPTER LI. The Weekly Occidental—A Ready Editor—A Novel—A Concentration
of Talent—The Heroes and the Heroines—The Dissolute Author
Engaged—Extraordinary Havoc With the Novel—A Highly Romantic Chapter—The
Lovers Separated—Jonah Out-done—A Lost Poem—The Aged Pilot Man—Storm On
the Erie Canal—Dollinger the Pilot Man—Terrific Gale—Danger Increases—A
Crisis Arrived—Saved as if by a Miracle
CHAPTER LII. Freights to California—Silver Bricks—Under Ground
Mines—Timber Supports—A Visit to the Mines—The Caved Mines—Total of
Shipments in 1863
CHAPTER LIII. Jim Blaine and his Grandfather’s Ram—Filkin’s Mistake—Old
Miss Wagner and her Glass Eye—Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer—Waiting for a
Customer—His Bargain With Old Robbins—Robbins Sues for Damage and
Collects—A New Use for Missionaries—The Effect—His Uncle Lem and the Use
Providence Made of Him—Sad Fate of Wheeler—Devotion of His Wife—A Model
Monument—What About the Ram?
CHAPTER LIV. Chinese in Virginia City—Washing Bills—Habit of
Imitation—Chinese Immigration—A Visit to Chinatown—Messrs. Ah Sing, Hong
Wo, See Yup, &c.
CHAPTER LV. Tired of Virginia City—An Old Schoolmate—A Two Years’
Loan—Acting as an Editor—Almost Receive an Offer—An Accident—Three
Drunken Anecdotes—Last Look at Mt. Davidson—A Beautiful Incident
CHAPTER LVI. Off for San Francisco—Western and Eastern Landscapes—The
Hottest place on Earth—Summer and Winter
CHAPTER LVII. California—Novelty of Seeing a Woman—“Well if it ain’t a
Child!”—One Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a Kiss—Waiting for a turn
CHAPTER LVIII. Life in San Francisco—Worthless Stocks—My First
Earthquake—Reportorial Instincts—Effects of the Shocks—Incidents and
Curiosities—Sabbath Breakers—The Lodger and the Chambermaid—A Sensible
Fashion to Follow—Effects of the Earthquake on the Ministers
CHAPTER LIX. Poor Again—Slinking as a Business—A Model Collector—Misery
loves Company—Comparing Notes for Comfort—A Streak of Luck—Finding a
Dime—Wealthy by Comparison—Two Sumptuous Dinners
CHAPTER LX. An Old Friend—An Educated Miner—Pocket Mining—Freaks of
Fortune
CHAPTER LXI. Dick Baker and his Cat—Tom Quartz’s Peculiarities—On an
Excursion—Appearance On His Return—A Prejudiced Cat—Empty Pockets and a
Roving Life
CHAPTER LXII. Bound for the Sandwich Islands—The Three Captains—The Old
Admiral—His Daily Habits—His Well Fought Fields—An Unexpected
Opponent—The Admiral Overpowered—The Victor Declared a Hero
CHAPTER LXIII. Arrival at the Islands—Honolulu—What I Saw There—Dress
and Habits of the Inhabitants—The Animal Kingdom—Fruits and Delightful
Effects
CHAPTER LXIV. An Excursion—Captain Phillips and his Turn-Out—A Horseback
Ride—A Vicious Animal—Nature and Art—Interesting Ruins—All Praise to the
Missionaries
CHAPTER LXV. Interesting Mementoes and Relics—An Old Legend of a
Frightful Leap—An Appreciative Horse—Horse Jockeys and Their Brothers—A
New Trick—A Hay Merchant—Good Country for Horse Lovers
CHAPTER LXVI. A Saturday Afternoon—Sandwich Island Girls on a Frolic—The
Poi Merchant—Grand Gala Day—A Native Dance—Church Membership—Cats and
Officials—An Overwhelming Discovery
CHAPTER LXVII. The Legislature of the Island—What Its President Has
Seen—Praying for an Enemy—Women’s Rights—Romantic Fashions—Worship of
the Shark—Desire for Dress—Full Dress—Not Paris Style—Playing
Empire—Officials and Foreign Ambassadors—Overwhelming Magnificence
CHAPTER LXVIII. A Royal Funeral—Order of Procession—Pomp and Ceremony—A
Striking Contrast—A Sick Monarch—Human Sacrifices at His Death—Burial
Orgies
CHAPTER LXIX. “Once more upon the Waters.”—A Noisy Passenger—Several
Silent Ones—A Moonlight Scene—Fruits and Plantations
CHAPTER LXX. A Droll Character—Mrs. Beazely and Her Son—Meditations on
Turnips—A Letter from Horace Greeley—An Indignant Rejoinder—The Letter
Translated but too Late
CHAPTER LXXI. _Kealakekua_ Bay—Death of Captain Cook—His Monument—Its
Construction—On Board the Schooner
CHAPTER LXXII. Young Kanakas in New England—A Temple Built by
Ghosts—Female Bathers—I Stood Guard—Women and Whiskey—A Fight for
Religion—Arrival of Missionaries
CHAPTER LXXIII. Native Canoes—Surf Bathing—A Sanctuary—How Built—The
Queen’s Rock—Curiosities—Petrified Lava
CHAPTER LXXIV. Visit to the Volcano—The Crater—Pillar of
Fire—Magnificent Spectacle—A Lake of Fire
CHAPTER LXXV. The North Lake—Fountains of Fire—Streams of Burning
Lava—Tidal Waves
CHAPTER LXXVI. A Reminiscence—Another Horse Story—My Ride with the
Retired Milk Horse—A Picnicing Excursion—Dead Volcano of
Holeakala—Comparison with Vesuvius—An Inside View
CHAPTER LXXVII. A Curious Character—A Series of Stories—Sad Fate of a
Liar—Evidence of Insanity
CHAPTER LXXVIII. Return to San Francisco—Ship Amusements—Preparing for
Lecturing—Valuable Assistance Secured—My First Attempt—The Audience
Carried—“All’s Well that Ends Well.”
CHAPTER LXXIX. Highwaymen—A Predicament—A Huge Joke—Farewell to
California—At Home Again—Great Changes. Moral.
APPENDIX. A.—Brief Sketch of Mormon History B.—The Mountain Meadows
Massacre C.—Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was never
Consummated
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. THE MINERS’ DREAM
2. ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS
3. INNOCENT DREAMS
4. LIGHT TRAVELING ORDER
5. THE “ALLEN”
6. INDUCEMENTS TO PURCHASE
7. THE FACETIOUS DRIVER
8. PLEASING NEWS
9. THE SPHYNX
10. MEDITATION
11. ON BUSINESS
12. AUTHOR AS GULLIVER
13. A TOUCH STATEMENT
14. THIRD TRIP OF THE UNABRIDGED
15. A POWERFUL GLASS
16. AN HEIRLOOM
17. OUR LANDLORD
18. DIGNIFIED EXILE
19. DRINKING SLUMGULLION
20. A JOKE WITHOUT CREAM
21. PULLMAN CAR DINING-SALOON
22. OUR MORNING RIDE
23. PRAIRIE DOGS
24. A CAYOTE
25. SHOWING RESPECT TO RELATIVES
26. THE CONDUCTOR
27. TEACHING A SUBORDINATE
28. JACK AND THE ELDERLY PILGRIM
29. CROSSING THE PLATTE
30. I BEGAN TO PRAY
31. A NEW DEPARTURE
32. SUSPENDED OPERATIONS
33. A WONDERFUL LIE
34. TALL PIECE
35. HERE HE COMES
36. CHANGING HORSES
37. RIDING THE AVALANCHE
38. INDIAN COUNTRY
39. A PROPOSED FIST FIGHT
40. FROM BEHIND THE DOOR
41. SLADE AS AN EXECUTIONER
42. AN UNPLEASANT VIEW
43. UNAPPRECIATED POLITENESS
44. SLADE IN COURT
45. A WIFE’S LAMENTATIONS
46. THE CONCENTRATED INHABITANT
47. THE SOUTH PASS
48. THE PARTED STREAMS
49. IT SPOILED THE MELON
50. THE CAYOTE AND THE RAVEN
51. “DON’T COME HERE ...
52. “THINK I’M A FOOL ...
53. THE “DESTROYING ANGEL...
54. EFFECTS OF “VALLEY TAN”
55. ONE CREST
56. THE OTHER
57. THE VAGRANT
58. PORTRAIT OF EBER KIMBALL
59. PORTRAIT OR BRIGHAM YOUNG
60. THE CONTRACTORS BEFORE THE KING
61. I WAS TOUCHED
62. THE ENDOWMENT
63. FAVORITE WIFE AND D.4
64. NEEDED MARKING
65. A REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCE
66. THE FAMILY BEDSTEAD
67. THE MIRACULOUS COMPASS
68. THREE SIDES TO A QUESTION
69. RESULT OF HFGH FREIGHTS
70. A SHRIVELED QUARTER
71. AN OBJECT OF PITY
72. TAIL-PIECE
73. TAIL-PIECE
74. GOSHOTT INDIANS HANGING AROUND
75. THE DRIVE FOR LIFE
76. GREELEY’S RIDE
77. BOTTLING AN ANECDOTE
78. TAIL-PIECE
79. CONTEMPLATION
80. THE WASHOE ZEPHYR
81. THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE
82. DARK DISCLOSURES
83. THE IRISH BRIGADE
84. RECREATION
85. THE TARANTULA
86. LIGHT THROWN ON THE SUBJECT
87. I STEERED
88. THE INVALID
89. THE RESTORED
90. OUR HOUSE
91. AT BUSINESS
92. FIGHT AT LAKE TAHOE
93. “THINK HIM AN AMERICAN HORSE”
94. UNEXPECTED ELEVATION
95. UNIVERSALLY UNSETTLED
96. RIDING THE PLUG
97. WANTED EXERCISE
98. BORROWING MADE EASY
99. FREE RIDES
100. SATISFACTORY VOUCHERS
101. NEEDS PRAYING FOR
102. MAP OF TOLL ROADS
103. UNLOADING SILVER BRICKS
104. VIEW IN HUMBOLDT MOUNTAINS
105. GOING TO HUMBOLDT
106. BALLOU’S BEDFELLOW
107. PLEASURES OF CAMPING OUT
108. THE SECRET SEARCH
109. “CAST YOUR EYE ON THAT ...
110. “WE’VE GOT IT”
111. INCIPIENT MILLIONAIRES
112. ROCKS-TAIL-PIECE
113. “DO YOU SEE IT?”
114. FAREWELL SWEET RIVER
115. THE RESCUE
116. “MR. ARKANSAS ...
117. AN ARMED ALLY
118. CROSSING THE FLOOD
119. ADVANCE IN A CIRCLE
120, THE SONGSTER
121. THE FOXES HAVE HOLES-TAIL-PIECE
122. A FLAT FAILURE
123. THE LAST MATCH
124. DISCARDED VICES
125. FLAMES-TAIL-PIECE
127. IT WAS THUS WE MET
128. TAKING POSSESSION
129. A GREAT EFFORT
130. REARRANGING AND SHIFTING
131. WE LEFT LAMENTED
132. PICTURE OF TOWNSEND’S TUNNEL
133. QUARTZ MILL
134. ANOTHER PROCESS OF AMALGAMATION
135. FIRST QUARTZ MILL IN NEVADA
136. A SLICE OF RICH ORE
137. THE SAVED BROTHER
138. ON A SECRET EXPEDITION
139. LAKE MONO
140. RATHER SOAPY
141. A BARK UNDER FULL SAIL
142. A MODEL BOARDING HOUSE
143. LIFE AMID DEATH
144. A JUMP FOR LIFE
145. “STOVE HEAP GONE”
146. INTERVIEWING THE “WIDE WEST”
147. WORTH A MILLION
148. MILLIONAIRES LAYING PLANS
149. DANGEROUSLY SICK
150. WORTH NOTHING
151. THE COMPROMISE
152. ONE OF MY FAILURES
153. TARGET SHOOTING
154. AS CITY EDITOR
155. THE ENTIRE MARKET
156. A FRIEND INDEED
157. UNION-TAIL-PIECE
158. AN EDUCATIONAL REPORT
159. NO PARTICULAR HURRY
160. VIEW OF VIRGINIA CITY AND MT. DAVIDSON
161. A NEW MINE
162. TRY A FEW
163. PORTRAIT OF MR. STEWART
164. SELLING A MINE
165. COULDN’T WAIT
166. THE GREAT “FLOUR SACS” PROCESSION
167. TAIL-PIECE
168. A NABOB
169. MAGNIFICENCE AND MISERY
170. A FRIENDLY DRIVER
171. ASTONISHES THE NATIVES
172. COL. JACK WEAKENS
173. SCOTTY BRIGGS AND THE MINISTER
174. REGULATING MATTERS
175. DIDN’T SHOOK HIS MOTHER
176. SCOTTY AS S. S. TEACHER
177. THE MAN WHO HAD KILLED HIS DOZEN
178. THE UNPREJUDICED JURY
179. A DESPERADO GIVING REFERENCE
180. SATISFYING A FOE
181. TAIL-PIECE
182. GIVING INFORMATION
183. A WALKING BATTERY
184. OVERHAULING HIS MANIFEST
185. SHIP-TAIL-PIECE
186. THE HEROES AND HEROINES OF THE STORY
187. DISSOLUTE AUTHOR
188. THERE SAT THE LAWYER
189. JONAH OUTDONE
190. DOLLINGER
191. LOW BRIDGE
192. SHORTENING SAIL
193. LIGHTENING SHIP
194. THE MARVELLOUS RESCUE
195. SILVER BRICKS
196. TIMBER SUPPORTS
197. FROM GALLERY TO GALLERY
198. JIM BLAINE
199. HURRAH FOR NIXON
200. MISS WAGNER
201. WAITING FOR A CUSTOMER
202. WAS TO BE THERE
209. THE MONUMENT
205. WHERE IS THE RAM-TAIL-PIECE
205. CHINESE WASH BILL
206. IMITATION
207. CHINESE LOTTERY
208. CHINESE MERCHANT AT HOME
209. AN OLD FRIEND
210. FAREWELL AND ACCIDENT
211. “GIMME A CIGAR”
212. THE HERALD OF GLAD NEWS
213. FLAG-TAIL-PIECE
214. A NEW ENGLAND SCENE
215. A VARIABLE CLIMATE
216. SACRAMENTO AND THREE NODES AWAY
217. “FETCH HER OUT ...
218. “WELL IF IT AINT A CHILD ...
219. A GENUINE LIVE WOMAN
220. THE GRACE OF A KANGAROO
221. DREAMS DISSIPATED
222. THE “ONE HORSE SHAY” OUTDONE
223. HARD ON THE INNOCENTS
224. DRY BONES SHAKEN
225. “OH! WHAT, SHALL I DO!...
226. “GET OUT YOUR TOWEL MY DEAR”
227. “WE WILL OMIT THE BENEDICTION...
228. SLINKING
229. A PRIZE
230. A LOOK IN AT THE WINDOW
231. “DO IT STRANGER”
232. THE OLD COLLEGIATE
233. STRIKING A POCKET
234. TOM QUARTZ
235. AN ADVANTAGE TAKEN
236. AFTER AN EXCURSION
237. THE THREE CAPTAINS
238. THE OLD ADMIRAL
239. THE DESERTED FIELD
240. WILLIAMS
241. SCENE ON THE SANDWICH ISLANDS
242. FASHIONABLE ATTIRE
243. A BITE
244. RECONNOITERING
246. LOOKING FOR MISCHIEF
247. A FAMILY LIKENESS
248. SIT DOWN To LISTEN
249. “MY BROTHER, WE TWINS”
250. EXTRAORDINARY CAPERS
251. A LOAD OF HAY
252. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA
253. SANDWICH ISLAND GIRLS
254. ORIGINAL HAM SANDWICH
255. “I KISSED HIM FOR HIS MOTHER”
256. AN OUTSIDER
257. AN ENEMY’S PRAYER
258. VISITING THE MISSIONARIES
259. FULL CHURCH DRESS
260. PLAYING EMPIRE
261. ROYALTY AND ITS SATELLITES
262. A HIGH PRIVATE
263. A MODERN FUNERAL
264. FORMER FUNERAL ORGIES
265. A PASSENGER
266. MOONLIGHT ON THE WATER
267. GOING INTO THE MOUNTAINS
268. EVENING
289. THE DEMENTED
270. DISCUSSING TURNIPS
271. GREELEY’S LETTER
272. KEALAKEKUA BAY AND COOK’S MONUMENT
273. THE GHOSTLY BUILDERS
274. ON GUARD
275. BREAKING THE TABU
276. SURF BATHING
277. SURF BATHING A FAILURE
278. CITY OF REFUGE
279. THE QUEEN’S ROCK
280. TAIL-PIECE
281. THE PILLAR OF FIRE
282. THE CRATER
283. BROKE THROUGH
284. FIRE FOUNTAINS
285. LAVA STREAM
286. A TIDAL WAVE
287. TRIP ON THE MILKY WAY
288. A VIEW IN THE TAO VALLEY
289. MAGNIFICENT SPORT
290. ELEVEN MILES TO SEE
291. CHASED BY A STORM
292. LEAVING WORK
293. TAIL-PIECE
294. OUR AMUSEMENTS
295. SEVERE CASE OF STAGE FRIGHT
296. MY THREE PARQUETTE ALLIES
297. SAWYER IN THE CIRCLE
298. A PREDICAMENT
299. THE BEST OF THE JOKE
300. THE END
CHAPTER I.
My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an
office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and
dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting
Governor in the Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars
a year and the title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the great position an
air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I
envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor,
but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going
to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going
to travel! I never had been away from home, and that word “travel” had a
seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of
miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of
the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and
antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or
scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all
about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver
mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and
pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and
silver on the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and
return home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco
and the ocean, and “the isthmus” as if it was nothing of any consequence
to have seen those marvels face to face.
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What I suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of private
secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heavens and the earth
passed away, and the firmament was rolled together as a scroll! I had
nothing more to desire. My contentment was complete.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not much
packing up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage
from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a
small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no Pacific railroad in those
fine times of ten or twelve years ago—not a single rail of it. I only
proposed to stay in Nevada three months—I had no thought of staying
longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange,
and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see
the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven
uncommonly long years!
I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due
time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis wharf on board a
steamboat bound up the Missouri River.
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We were six days going from St. Louis to “St. Jo.”—a trip that was so
dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more impression on
my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that
many days. No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a
confused jumble of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked
over with one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted and
butted, and then retired from and climbed over in some softer place;
and of sand-bars which we roosted on occasionally, and rested, and then
got out our crutches and sparred over.
In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for
she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and
clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The
captain said she was a “bully” boat, and all she wanted was more “shear”
and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the
deep sagacity not to say so.
CHaPTER II.
The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph
was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars
apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada.
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The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast, and
hurried to the starting-place. Then an inconvenience presented itself
which we had not properly appreciated before, namely, that one cannot
make a heavy traveling trunk stand for twenty-five pounds of
baggage—because it weighs a good deal more. But that was all we could
take—twenty-five pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open, and
make a selection in a good deal of a hurry. We put our lawful
twenty-five pounds apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks
back to St. Louis again. It was a sad parting, for now we had no
swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to wear at Pawnee receptions in
the Rocky Mountains, and no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots,
nor anything else necessary to make life calm and peaceful. We were
reduced to a war-footing. Each of us put on a rough, heavy suit of
clothing, woolen army shirt and “stogy” boots included; and into the
valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-clothing and such
things. My brother, the Secretary, took along about four pounds of
United States statutes and six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary; for we
did not know—poor innocents—that such things could be bought in San
Francisco on one day and received in Carson City the next. I was armed
to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter,
which carried a ball like a homoeopathic pill, and it took the whole
seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It
appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only had one fault—you
could not hit anything with it. One of our “conductors” practiced
awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved
herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, and he
got to shooting at other things, she came to grief. The Secretary had a
small-sized Colt’s revolver strapped around him for protection against
the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it uncapped. Mr.
George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was our
fellow-traveler.
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We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original
“Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.”
Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the
trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn
over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the
ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a
feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the world. But
George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the
stage-drivers afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after,
she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce
of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about
thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the
owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy
it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon—the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six
barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all
the region round about, but behind it.
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We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty weather in
the mountains. In the matter of luxuries we were modest—we took none
along but some pipes and five pounds of smoking tobacco. We had two
large canteens to carry water in, between stations on the Plains, and we
also took with us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily expenses in
the way of breakfasts and dinners.
By eight o’clock everything was ready, and we were on the other side of
the river. We jumped into the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we
bowled away and left “the States” behind us. It was a superb summer
morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a
freshness and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation
from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made us feel
that the years we had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving,
had been wasted and thrown away. We were spinning along through Kansas,
and in the course of an hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the
great Plains. Just here the land was rolling—a grand sweep of regular
elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach—like the
stately heave and swell of the ocean’s bosom after a storm. And
everywhere were cornfields, accenting with squares of deeper green, this
limitless expanse of grassy land. But presently this sea upon dry ground
was to lose its “rolling” character and stretch away for seven hundred
miles as level as a floor!
Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most sumptuous
description—an imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome
horses, and by the side of the driver sat the “conductor,” the
legitimate captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge
and care of the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We three
were the only passengers, this trip. We sat on the back seat, inside.
About all the rest of the coach was full of mail bags—for we had three
days’ delayed mails with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular
wall of mail matter rose up to the roof. There was a great pile of it
strapped on top of the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were
full. We had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver
said—“a little for Brigham, and Carson, and ’Frisco, but the heft of it
for the Injuns, which is powerful troublesome ’thout they get plenty of
truck to read.”
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But as he just then got up a fearful convulsion of his countenance which
was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake, we guessed
that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to mean that we would
unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains and leave it
to the Indians, or whosoever wanted it.
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We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over
the hard, level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time
the coach stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and
unfatigued.
After supper a woman got in, who lived about fifty miles further on, and
we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and
conductor. Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She would sit there
in the gathering twilight and fasten her steadfast eyes on a mosquito
rooting into her arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand till she
had got his range, and then she would launch a slap at him that would
have jolted a cow; and after that she would sit and contemplate the
corpse with tranquil satisfaction—for she never missed her mosquito; she
was a dead shot at short range. She never removed a carcase, but left
them there for bait. I sat by this grim Sphynx and watched her kill
thirty or forty mosquitoes—watched her, and waited for her to say
something, but she never did. So I finally opened the conversation
myself. I said:
“The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here, madam.”
“You bet!”
“What did I understand you to say, madam?”
“You BET!”
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Then she cheered up, and faced around and said:
“Danged if I didn’t begin to think you fellers was deef and dumb. I did,
b’gosh. Here I’ve sot, and sot, and sot, a-bust’n muskeeters and
wonderin’ what was ailin’ ye. Fust I thot you was deef and dumb, then I
thot you was sick or crazy, or suthin’, and then by and by I begin to
reckon you was a passel of sickly fools that couldn’t think of nothing
to say. Wher’d ye come from?”
The Sphynx was a Sphynx no more! The fountains of her great deep were
broken up, and she rained the nine parts of speech forty days and forty
nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under a desolating deluge
of trivial gossip that left not a crag or pinnacle of rejoinder
projecting above the tossing waste of dislocated grammar and decomposed
pronunciation!
How we suffered, suffered, suffered! She went on, hour after hour, till
I was sorry I ever opened the mosquito question and gave her a start.
She never did stop again until she got to her journey’s end toward
daylight; and then she stirred us up as she was leaving the stage (for
we were nodding, by that time), and said:
“Now you git out at Cottonwood, you fellers, and lay over a couple o’
days, and I’ll be along some time to-night, and if I can do ye any good
by edgin’ in a word now and then, I’m right thar. Folks’ll tell you’t
I’ve always ben kind o’ offish and partic’lar for a gal that’s raised in
the woods, and I am, with the rag-tag and bob-tail, and a gal _has_ to
be, if she wants to _be_ anything, but when people comes along which is
my equals, I reckon I’m a pretty sociable heifer after all.”
We resolved not to “lay by at Cottonwood.”
CHAPTER III.
About an hour and a half before daylight we were bowling along smoothly
over the road—so smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a gentle,
lulling way, that was gradually soothing us to sleep, and dulling our
consciousness—when something gave away under us! We were dimly aware of
it, but indifferent to it. The coach stopped. We heard the driver and
conductor talking together outside, and rummaging for a lantern, and
swearing because they could not find it—but we had no interest in
whatever had happened, and it only added to our comfort to think of
those people out there at work in the murky night, and we snug in our
nest with the curtains drawn. But presently, by the sounds, there seemed
to be an examination going on, and then the driver’s voice said:
“By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!”
This startled me broad awake—as an undefined sense of calamity is always
apt to do. I said to myself: “Now, a thoroughbrace is probably part of a
horse; and doubtless a vital part, too, from the dismay in the driver’s
voice. Leg, maybe—and yet how could he break his leg waltzing along such
a road as this? No, it can’t be his leg. That is impossible, unless he
was reaching for the driver. Now, what can be the thoroughbrace of a
horse, I wonder? Well, whatever comes, I shall not air my ignorance in
this crowd, anyway.”
Just then the conductor’s face appeared at a lifted curtain, and his
lantern glared in on us and our wall of mail matter. He said: “Gents,
you’ll have to turn out a spell. Thoroughbrace is broke.”
We climbed out into a chill drizzle, and felt ever so homeless and
dreary. When I found that the thing they called a “thoroughbrace” was
the massive combination of belts and springs which the coach rocks
itself in, I said to the driver:
“I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that, before, that I can
remember. How did it happen?”
“Why, it happened by trying to make one coach carry three days’
mail—that’s how it happened,” said he. “And right here is the very
direction which is wrote on all the newspaper-bags which was to be put
out for the Injuns for to keep ’em quiet. It’s most uncommon lucky,
becuz it’s so nation dark I should ’a’ gone by unbeknowns if that air
thoroughbrace hadn’t broke.”
I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks of his, though
I could not see his face, because he was bent down at work; and wishing
him a safe delivery, I turned to and helped the rest get out the
mail-sacks. It made a great pyramid by the roadside when it was all
out. When they had mended the thoroughbrace we filled the two boots
again, but put no mail on top, and only half as much inside as there
was before. The conductor bent all the seat-backs down, and then filled
the coach just half full of mail-bags from end to end. We objected
loudly to this, for it left us no seats. But the conductor was wiser
than we, and said a bed was better than seats, and moreover, this plan
would protect his thoroughbraces. We never wanted any seats after that.
The lazy bed was infinitely preferable. I had many an exciting day,
subsequently, lying on it reading the statutes and the dictionary, and
wondering how the characters would turn out.
The conductor said he would send back a guard from the next station to
take charge of the abandoned mail-bags, and we drove on.
It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our cramped legs full length
on the mail sacks, and gazed out through the windows across the wide
wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to where there was an
expectant look in the eastern horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the
form of a tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled along at a
spanking gait, the breeze flapping curtains and suspended coats in a
most exhilarating way; the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the
pattering of the horses’ hoofs, the cracking of the driver’s whip, and
his “Hi-yi! g’lang!” were music; the spinning ground and the waltzing
trees appeared to give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up
and look after us with interest, or envy, or something; and as we lay
and smoked the pipe of peace and compared all this luxury with the years
of tiresome city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was
only one complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had
found it.
After breakfast, at some station whose name I have forgotten, we three
climbed up on the seat behind the driver, and let the conductor have our
bed for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made me drowsy, I lay down on
my face on top of the coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and
slept for an hour or more. That will give one an appreciable idea of
those matchless roads. Instinct will make a sleeping man grip a fast
hold of the railing when the stage jolts, but when it only swings and
sways, no grip is necessary. Overland drivers and conductors used to sit
in their places and sleep thirty or forty minutes at a time, on good
roads, while spinning along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. I
saw them do it, often. There was no danger about it; a sleeping man
_will_ seize the irons in time when the coach jolts. These men were hard
worked, and it _was_ not possible for them to stay awake all the time.
By and by we passed through Marysville, and over the Big Blue and Little
Sandy; thence about a mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile further
on, we came to the Big Sandy—one hundred and eighty miles from St.
Joseph.
As the sun was going down, we saw the first specimen of an animal known
familiarly over two thousand miles of mountain and desert—from Kansas
clear to the Pacific Ocean—as the “jackass rabbit.” He is well named. He
is just like any other rabbit, except that he is from one third to twice
as large, has longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the most
preposterous ears that ever were mounted on any creature _but_ a
jackass.
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When he is sitting quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded
or unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project above him
conspicuously; but the breaking of a twig will scare him nearly to
death, and then he tilts his ears back gently and starts for home. All
you can see, then, for the next minute, is his long gray form stretched
out straight and “streaking it” through the low sage-brush, head erect,
eyes right, and ears just canted a little to the rear, but showing you
where the animal is, all the time, the same as if he carried a jib. Now
and then he makes a marvelous spring with his long legs, high over the
stunted sage-brush, and scores a leap that would make a horse envious.
Presently he comes down to a long, graceful “lope,” and shortly he
mysteriously disappears. He has crouched behind a sage-bush, and will
sit there and listen and tremble until you get within six feet of him,
when he will get under way again. But one must shoot at this creature
once, if he wishes to see him throw his heart into his heels, and do the
best he knows how. He is frightened clear through, now, and he lays his
long ears down on his back, straightens himself out like a yard-stick
every spring he makes, and scatters miles behind him with an easy
indifference that is enchanting.
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Our party made this specimen “hump himself,” as the conductor said. The
secretary started him with a shot from the Colt; I commenced spitting at
him with my weapon; and all in the same instant the old “Allen’s” whole
broadside let go with a rattling crash, and it is not putting it too
strong to say that the rabbit was frantic! He dropped his ears, set up
his tail, and left for San Francisco at a speed which can only be
described as a flash and a vanish! Long after he was out of sight we
could hear him whiz.
I do not remember where we first came across “sage-brush,” but as I have
been speaking of it I may as well describe it.
This is easily done, for if the reader can imagine a gnarled and
venerable live oak-tree reduced to a little shrub two feet-high, with
its rough bark, its foliage, its twisted boughs, all complete, he can
picture the “sage-brush” exactly. Often, on lazy afternoons in the
mountains, I have lain on the ground with my face under a sage-bush, and
entertained myself with fancying that the gnats among its foliage were
liliputian birds, and that the ants marching and countermarching about
its base were liliputian flocks and herds, and myself some vast loafer
from Brobdignag waiting to catch a little citizen and eat him.
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It is an imposing monarch of the forest in exquisite miniature, is the
“sage-brush.” Its foliage is a grayish green, and gives that tint to
desert and mountain. It smells like our domestic sage, and “sage-tea”
made from it taste like the sage-tea which all boys are so well
acquainted with. The sage-brush is a singularly hardy plant, and grows
right in the midst of deep sand, and among barren rocks, where nothing
else in the vegetable world would try to grow, except
“bunch-grass.”—[“Bunch-grass” grows on the bleak mountain-sides of
Nevada and neighboring territories, and offers excellent feed for
stock, even in the dead of winter, wherever the snow is blown aside and
exposes it; notwithstanding its unpromising home, bunch-grass is a
better and more nutritious diet for cattle and horses than almost any
other hay or grass that is known—so stock-men say.]—The sage-bushes
grow from three to six or seven feet apart, all over the mountains and
deserts of the Far West, clear to the borders of California. There is
not a tree of any kind in the deserts, for hundreds of miles—there is
no vegetation at all in a regular desert, except the sage-brush and its
cousin the “greasewood,” which is so much like the sage-brush that the
difference amounts to little. Camp-fires and hot suppers in the deserts
would be impossible but for the friendly sage-brush. Its trunk is as
large as a boy’s wrist (and from that up to a man’s arm), and its
crooked branches are half as large as its trunk—all good, sound, hard
wood, very like oak.
When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut sage-brush; and
in a few minutes there is an opulent pile of it ready for use. A hole a
foot wide, two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-brush
chopped up and burned in it till it is full to the brim with glowing
coals. Then the cooking begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently
no swearing. Such a fire will keep all night, with very little
replenishing; and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around
which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive,
and profoundly entertaining.
Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished
failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his
illegitimate child the mule. But their testimony to its nutritiousness
is worth nothing, for they will eat pine knots, or anthracite coal, or
brass filings, or lead pipe, or old bottles, or anything that comes
handy, and then go off looking as grateful as if they had had oysters
for dinner. Mules and donkeys and camels have appetites that anything
will relieve temporarily, but nothing satisfy.
In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of
my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a
critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of
getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as
an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet.
He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth,
and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while
opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he
had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life.
Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the other
sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such
contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the
daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some
percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople.
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And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance
in that—manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was
treading on dangerous ground, now. He began to come across solid wisdom
in those documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and
occasionally he would take a joke that would shake him up till it
loosened his teeth; it was getting to be perilous times with him, but he
held his grip with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to
stumble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity.
He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to
spread, and in about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a
carpenter’s work-bench, and died a death of indescribable agony. I went
and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive
creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest
statements of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public.
I was about to say, when diverted from my subject, that occasionally one
finds sage-bushes five or six feet high, and with a spread of branch and
foliage in proportion, but two or two and a half feet is the usual
height.
CHAPTER IV.
As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made preparation
for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter-sacks, and the knotty
canvas bags of printed matter (knotty and uneven because of projecting
ends and corners of magazines, boxes and books). We stirred them up and
redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level as possible.
And we _did_ improve it, too, though after all our work it had an
upheaved and billowy look about it, like a little piece of a stormy sea.
Next we hunted up our boots from odd nooks among the mail-bags where
they had settled, and put them on. Then we got down our coats, vests,
pantaloons and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm-loops where they had
been swinging all day, and clothed ourselves in them—for, there being no
ladies either at the stations or in the coach, and the weather being
hot, we had looked to our comfort by stripping to our underclothing, at
nine o’clock in the morning. All things being now ready, we stowed the
uneasy Dictionary where it would lie as quiet as possible, and placed
the water-canteens and pistols where we could find them in the dark.
Then we smoked a final pipe, and swapped a final yarn; after which, we
put the pipes, tobacco and bag of coin in snug holes and caves among the
mail-bags, and then fastened down the coach curtains all around, and
made the place as “dark as the inside of a cow,” as the conductor
phrased it in his picturesque way. It was certainly as dark as any place
could be—nothing was even dimly visible in it. And finally, we rolled
ourselves up like silk-worms, each person in his own blanket, and sank
peacefully to sleep.
Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we would wake up, and try
to recollect where we were—and succeed—and in a minute or two the stage
would be off again, and we likewise. We began to get into country, now,
threaded here and there with little streams. These had high, steep banks
on each side, and every time we flew down one bank and scrambled up the
other, our party inside got mixed somewhat. First we would all be down
in a pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture,
and in a second we would shoot to the other end, and stand on our heads.
And we would sprawl and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners of
mail-bags that came lumbering over us and about us; and as the dust
rose from the tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus, and the majority of
us would grumble, and probably say some hasty thing, like: “Take your
elbow out of my ribs!—can’t you quit crowding?”
Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the
Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every time it came it damaged
somebody. One trip it “barked” the Secretary’s elbow; the next trip it
hurt me in the stomach, and the third it tilted Bemis’s nose up till he
could look down his nostrils—he said. The pistols and coin soon settled
to the bottom, but the pipes, pipe-stems, tobacco and canteens clattered
and floundered after the Dictionary every time it made an assault on us,
and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco in our eyes, and
water down our backs.
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Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night. It wore
gradually away, and when at last a cold gray light was visible through
the puckers and chinks in the curtains, we yawned and stretched with
satisfaction, shed our cocoons, and felt that we had slept as much as
was necessary. By and by, as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we
pulled off our clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just
pleasantly in time, for five minutes afterward the driver sent the weird
music of his bugle winding over the grassy solitudes, and presently we
detected a low hut or two in the distance. Then the rattling of the
coach, the clatter of our six horses’ hoofs, and the driver’s crisp
commands, awoke to a louder and stronger emphasis, and we went sweeping
down on the station at our smartest speed. It was fascinating—that old
overland stagecoaching.
We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed his gathered reins
out on the ground, gaped and stretched complacently, drew off his heavy
buckskin gloves with great deliberation and insufferable dignity—taking
not the slightest notice of a dozen solicitous inquires after his
health, and humbly facetious and flattering accostings, and obsequious
tenders of service, from five or six hairy and half-civilized
station-keepers and hostlers who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and
bringing the fresh team out of the stables—for in the eyes of the
stage-driver of that day, station-keepers and hostlers were a sort of
good enough low creatures, useful in their place, and helping to make
up a world, but not the kind of beings which a person of distinction
could afford to concern himself with; while, on the contrary, in the
eyes of the station-keeper and the hostler, the stage-driver was a
hero—a great and shining dignitary, the world’s favorite son, the envy
of the people, the observed of the nations. When they spoke to him they
received his insolent silence meekly, and as being the natural and
proper conduct of so great a man; when he opened his lips they all hung
on his words with admiration (he never honored a particular individual
with a remark, but addressed it with a broad generality to the horses,
the stables, the surrounding country _and_ the human underlings); when
he discharged a facetious insulting personality at a hostler, that
hostler was happy for the day; when he uttered his one jest—old as the
hills, coarse, profane, witless, and inflicted on the same audience, in
the same language, every time his coach drove up there—the varlets
roared, and slapped their thighs, and swore it was the best thing
they’d ever heard in all their lives. And how they would fly around
when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the same, or a light for
his pipe!—but they would instantly insult a passenger if he so far
forgot himself as to crave a favor at their hands. They could do that
sort of insolence as well as the driver they copied it from—for, let it
be borne in mind, the overland driver had but little less contempt for
his passengers than he had for his hostlers.
The hostlers and station-keepers treated the really powerful _conductor_
of the coach merely with the best of what was their idea of civility,
but the _driver_ was the only being they bowed down to and worshipped.
How admiringly they would gaze up at him in his high seat as he gloved
himself with lingering deliberation, while some happy hostler held the
bunch of reins aloft, and waited patiently for him to take it! And how
they would bombard him with glorifying ejaculations as he cracked his
long whip and went careering away.
The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sundried, mud-colored
bricks, laid up without mortar (_adobes_, the Spaniards call these
bricks, and Americans shorten it to ’_dobies_). The roofs, which had no
slant to them worth speaking of, were thatched and then sodded or
covered with a thick layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank
growth of weeds and grass. It was the first time we had ever seen a
man’s front yard on top of his house. The building consisted of barns,
stable-room for twelve or fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating-room
for passengers. This latter had bunks in it for the station-keeper and a
hostler or two. You could rest your elbow on its eaves, and you had to
bend in order to get in at the door. In place of a window there was a
square hole about large enough for a man to crawl through, but this had
no glass in it. There was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard.
There was no stove, but the fire-place served all needful purposes.
There were no shelves, no cupboards, no closets. In a corner stood an
open sack of flour, and nestling against its base were a couple of black
and venerable tin coffee-pots, a tin teapot, a little bag of salt, and a
side of bacon.
By the door of the station-keeper’s den, outside, was a tin wash-basin,
on the ground. Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow bar
soap, and from the eaves hung a hoary blue woolen shirt,
significantly—but this latter was the station-keeper’s private towel,
and only two persons in all the party might venture to use it—the stage-
driver and the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency;
the former would not, because he did not choose to encourage the
advances of a station-keeper. We had towels—in the valise; they might as
well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We (and the conductor) used our
handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door,
inside, was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass frame, with two
little fragments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it.
This arrangement afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you
when you looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple of
inches above the other half. From the glass frame hung the half of a
comb by a string—but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I
believe I would order some sample coffins.
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It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been accumulating hair
ever since—along with certain impurities. In one corner of the room
stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches
of ammunition. The station-men wore pantaloons of coarse, country-woven
stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample
additions of buckskin, to do duty in place of leggings, when the man
rode horseback—so the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and
unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into the tops of high
boots, the heels whereof were armed with great Spanish spurs, whose
little iron clogs and chains jingled with every step. The man wore a
huge beard and mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue woolen shirt, no
suspenders, no vest, no coat—in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great
long “navy” revolver (slung on right side, hammer to the front), and
projecting from his boot a horn-handled bowie-knife.
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The furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The
rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, but they
were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four
feet long, and two empty candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board on
stilts, and the table-cloth and napkins had not come—and they were not
looking for them, either. A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and
a tin pint cup, were at each man’s place, and the driver had a queens-
ware saucer that had seen better days. Of course this duke sat at the
head of the table. There was one isolated piece of table furniture that
bore about it a touching air of grandeur in misfortune. This was the
caster. It was German silver, and crippled and rusty, but it was so
preposterously out of place there that it was suggestive of a tattered
exiled king among barbarians, and the majesty of its native position
compelled respect even in its degradation.
There was only one cruet left, and that was a stopperless, fly-specked,
broken-necked thing, with two inches of vinegar in it, and a dozen
preserved flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had invested
there.
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The station-keeper upended a disk of last week’s bread, of the shape and
size of an old-time cheese, and carved some slabs from it which were as
good as Nicholson pavement, and tenderer.
He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the experienced
old hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned army bacon which the
United States would not feed to its soldiers in the forts, and the stage
company had bought it cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and
employees. We may have found this condemned army bacon further out on
the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we _found_ it—there
is no gainsaying that.
Then he poured for us a beverage which he called “Slumgullion,” and it
is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really
pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old
bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler.
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He had no sugar and no milk—not even a spoon to stir the ingredients
with.
We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the “slumgullion.” And
when I looked at that melancholy vinegar-cruet, I thought of the
anecdote (a very, very old one, even at that day) of the traveler who
sat down to a table which had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of
mustard. He asked the landlord if this was all. The landlord said:
“_All_! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there was mackerel
enough there for six.”
“But I don’t like mackerel.”
“Oh—then help yourself to the mustard.”
In other days I had considered it a good, a very good, anecdote, but
there was a dismal plausibility about it, here, that took all the humor
out of it.
Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were idle.
I tasted and smelt, and said I would take coffee, I believed. The
station-boss stopped dead still, and glared at me speechless. At last,
when he came to, he turned away and said, as one who communes with
himself upon a matter too vast to grasp:
“_Coffee_! Well, if that don’t go clean ahead of me, I’m d——d!”
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We could not eat, and there was no conversation among the hostlers and
herdsmen—we all sat at the same board. At least there was no
conversation further than a single hurried request, now and then, from
one employee to another. It was always in the same form, and always
gruffly friendly. Its western freshness and novelty startled me, at
first, and interested me; but it presently grew monotonous, and lost its
charm. It was:
“Pass the bread, you son of a skunk!” No, I forget—skunk was not the
word; it seems to me it was still stronger than that; I know it was, in
fact, but it is gone from my memory, apparently. However, it is no
matter—probably it was too strong for print, anyway. It is the landmark
in my memory which tells me where I first encountered the vigorous new
vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains.
We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar apiece and went back to
our mail-bag bed in the coach, and found comfort in our pipes. Right
here we suffered the first diminution of our princely state. We left our
six fine horses and took six mules in their place. But they were wild
Mexican fellows, and a man had to stand at the head of each of them and
hold him fast while the driver gloved and got himself ready. And when at
last he grasped the reins and gave the word, the men sprung suddenly
away from the mules’ heads and the coach shot from the station as if it
had issued from a cannon. How the frantic animals did scamper! It was a
fierce and furious gallop—and the gait never altered for a moment till
we reeled off ten or twelve miles and swept up to the next collection of
little station-huts and stables.
So we flew along all day. At 2 P.M. the belt of timber that fringes the
North Platte and marks its windings through the vast level floor of the
Plains came in sight. At 4 P.M. we crossed a branch of the river, and at
5 P.M. we crossed the Platte itself, and landed at Fort Kearney, fifty-
six hours out from _St. Joe_—THREE HUNDRED MILES!
Now that was stage-coaching on the great overland, ten or twelve years
ago, when perhaps not more than ten men in America, all told, expected
to live to see a railroad follow that route to the Pacific. But the
railroad is there, now, and it pictures a thousand odd comparisons and
contrasts in my mind to read the following sketch, in the New York
Times, of a recent trip over almost the very ground I have been
describing. I can scarcely comprehend the new state of things:
“ACROSS THE CONTINENT.
“At 4.20 P.M., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at Omaha, and
started westward on our long jaunt. A couple of hours out, dinner was
announced—an “event” to those of us who had yet to experience what it is
to eat in one of Pullman’s hotels on wheels; so, stepping into the car
next forward of our sleeping palace, we found ourselves in the dining-
car. It was a revelation to us, that first dinner on Sunday. And though
we continued to dine for four days, and had as many breakfasts and
suppers, our whole party never ceased to admire the perfection of the
arrangements, and the marvelous results achieved. Upon tables covered
with snowy linen, and garnished with services of solid silver, Ethiop
waiters, flitting about in spotless white, placed as by magic a repast
at which Delmonico himself could have had no occasion to blush; and,
indeed, in some respects it would be hard for that distinguished chef to
match our menu; for, in addition to all that ordinarily makes up a
first-chop dinner, had we not our antelope steak (the gormand who has
not experienced this—bah! what does he know of the feast of fat things?)
our delicious mountain-brook trout, and choice fruits and berries, and
(sauce piquant and unpurchasable!) our sweet-scented, appetite-
compelling air of the prairies?
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“You may depend upon it, we all did justice to the good things, and as
we washed them down with bumpers of sparkling Krug, whilst we sped along
at the rate of thirty miles an hour, agreed it was the fastest living we
had ever experienced. (We beat that, however, two days afterward when we
made twenty-seven miles in twenty-seven minutes, while our Champagne
glasses filled to the brim spilled not a drop!) After dinner we repaired
to our drawing-room car, and, as it was Sabbath eve, intoned some of the
grand old hymns—“Praise God from whom,” etc.; “Shining Shore,”
“Coronation,” etc.—the voices of the men singers and of the women
singers blending sweetly in the evening air, while our train, with its
great, glaring Polyphemus eye, lighting up long vistas of prairie,
rushed into the night and the Wild. Then to bed in luxurious couches,
where we slept the sleep of the just and only awoke the next morning
(Monday) at eight o’clock, to find ourselves at the crossing of the
North Platte, three hundred miles from Omaha—fifteen hours and forty
minutes out.”
CHAPTER V.
Another night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came,
by and by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses
of level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly
without visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of
such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand
were more than three mile away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed a-
top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted
occasionally at our frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears
back and scamper faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing
away, and leveled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us for
things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it thrills me
through and through to think of the life, the gladness and the wild
sense of freedom that used to make the blood dance in my veins on those
fine overland mornings!
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Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog
villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly,
this latter was the regular _cayote_ (pronounced ky-_o_-te) of the
farther deserts. And if it _was_, he was not a pretty creature or
respectable either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward,
and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick and
sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a
tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression
of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp
face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general
slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory
of Want. He is _always_ hungry.
He is always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures
despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is
so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are
pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it. And he
is so _homely_!—so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful.
When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and
then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his
head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush,
glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about
out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate
survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—another fifty and
stop again; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends with the
gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no
demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier
interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels and puts
such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon, that by the
time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and
by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by
the time you have “drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing
but an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where
he is now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy
it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of
himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about
speed.
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The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his,
and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder
that will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly
ambition, and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, and
stretch his neck further to the front, and pant more fiercely, and stick
his tail out straighter behind, and move his furious legs with a yet
wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and broader, and higher and denser
cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across
the level plain! And all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet
behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he cannot understand why
it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get
aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the
cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he
grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been
taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long,
calm, soft-footed trot is; and next he notices that he is getting
fagged, and that the cayote actually has to slacken speed a little to
keep from running away from him—and _then_ that town-dog is mad in
earnest, and he begins to strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand
higher than ever, and reach for the cayote with concentrated and
desperate energy. This “spurt” finds him six feet behind the gliding
enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a
wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles
blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to
say: “Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub—business is
business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all
day”—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of
a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and
alone in the midst of a vast solitude!
It makes his head swim. He stops, and looks all around; climbs the
nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head
reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to
his train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost wagon, and
feels unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-
mast for a week. And for as much as a year after that, whenever there is
a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely glance in that
direction without emotion, and apparently observe to himself, “I believe
I do not wish any of the pie.”
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The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding desert,
along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven, and gets an
uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist
almost wholly on the carcases of oxen, mules and horses that have
dropped out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of carrion,
and occasional legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men who have
been opulent enough to have something better to butcher than condemned
army bacon.
He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the desert-
frequenting tribes of Indians will, and they will eat anything they can
bite. It is a curious fact that these latter are the only creatures
known to history who will eat nitro-glycerine and ask for more if they
survive.
The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly
hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are
just as apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert
breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he
is himself; and when this occurs he has to content himself with sitting
off at a little distance watching those people strip off and dig out
everything edible, and walk off with it. Then he and the waiting ravens
explore the skeleton and polish the bones. It is considered that the
cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the desert, testify
their blood kinship with each other in that they live together in the
waste places of the earth on terms of perfect confidence and friendship,
while hating all other creature and yearning to assist at their
funerals. He does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a
hundred and fifty to dinner, because he is sure to have three or four
days between meals, and he can just as well be traveling and looking at
the scenery as lying around doing nothing and adding to the burdens of
his parents.
We soon learned to recognize the sharp, vicious bark of the cayote as it
came across the murky plain at night to disturb our dreams among the
mail-sacks; and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard fortune,
made shift to wish him the blessed novelty of a long day’s good luck and
a limitless larder the morrow.
CHAPTER VI.
Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep for twenty
hours. Such a thing was very frequent. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to
Sacramento, California, by stage-coach, was nearly nineteen hundred
miles, and the trip was often made in fifteen days (the cars do it in
four and a half, now), but the time specified in the mail contracts, and
required by the schedule, was eighteen or nineteen days, if I remember
rightly. This was to make fair allowance for winter storms and snows,
and other unavoidable causes of detention. The stage company had
everything under strict discipline and good system. Over each two
hundred and fifty miles of road they placed an agent or superintendent,
and invested him with great authority. His beat or jurisdiction of two
hundred and fifty miles was called a “division.” He purchased horses,
mules harness, and food for men and beasts, and distributed these things
among his stage stations, from time to time, according to his judgment
of what each station needed. He erected station buildings and dug wells.
He attended to the paying of the station-keepers, hostlers, drivers and
blacksmiths, and discharged them whenever he chose. He was a very, very
great man in his “division”—a kind of Grand Mogul, a Sultan of the
Indies, in whose presence common men were modest of speech and manner,
and in the glare of whose greatness even the dazzling stage-driver
dwindled to a penny dip. There were about eight of these kings, all
told, on the overland route.
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Next in rank and importance to the division-agent came the “conductor.”
His beat was the same length as the agent’s—two hundred and fifty miles.
He sat with the driver, and (when necessary) rode that fearful distance,
night and day, without other rest or sleep than what he could get
perched thus on top of the flying vehicle. Think of it! He had absolute
charge of the mails, express matter, passengers and stage-coach, until
he delivered them to the next conductor, and got his receipt for them.
Consequently he had to be a man of intelligence, decision and
considerable executive ability. He was usually a quiet, pleasant man,
who attended closely to his duties, and was a good deal of a gentleman.
It was not absolutely necessary that the division-agent should be a
gentleman, and occasionally he wasn’t. But he was always a general in
administrative ability, and a bull-dog in courage and
determination—otherwise the chieftainship over the lawless underlings of
the overland service would never in any instance have been to him
anything but an equivalent for a month of insolence and distress and a
bullet and a coffin at the end of it. There were about sixteen or
eighteen conductors on the overland, for there was a daily stage each
way, and a conductor on every stage.
Next in _real_ and official rank and importance, _after_ the conductor,
came my delight, the driver—next in real but not in _apparent_
importance—for we have seen that in the eyes of the common herd the
driver was to the conductor as an admiral is to the captain of the flag-
ship. The driver’s beat was pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the
stations pretty short, sometimes; and so, but for the grandeur of his
position his would have been a sorry life, as well as a hard and a
wearing one. We took a new driver every day or every night (for they
drove backward and forward over the same piece of road all the time),
and therefore we never got as well acquainted with them as we did with
the conductors; and besides, they would have been above being familiar
with such rubbish as passengers, anyhow, as a general thing. Still, we
were always eager to get a sight of each and every new driver as soon as
the watch changed, for each and every day we were either anxious to get
rid of an unpleasant one, or loath to part with a driver we had learned
to like and had come to be sociable and friendly with. And so the first
question we asked the conductor whenever we got to where we were to
exchange drivers, was always, “Which is him?” The grammar was faulty,
maybe, but we could not know, then, that it would go into a book some
day. As long as everything went smoothly, the overland driver was well
enough situated, but if a fellow driver got sick suddenly it made
trouble, for the coach _must_ go on, and so the potentate who was about
to climb down and take a luxurious rest after his long night’s siege in
the midst of wind and rain and darkness, had to stay where he was and do
the sick man’s work. Once, in the Rocky Mountains, when I found a driver
sound asleep on the box, and the mules going at the usual break-neck
pace, the conductor said never mind him, there was no danger, and he was
doing double duty—had driven seventy-five miles on one coach, and was
now going back over it on this without rest or sleep. A hundred and
fifty miles of holding back of six vindictive mules and keeping them
from climbing the trees! It sounds incredible, but I remember the
statement well enough.
The station-keepers, hostlers, etc., were low, rough characters, as
already described; and from western Nebraska to Nevada a considerable
sprinkling of them might be fairly set down as outlaws—fugitives from
justice, criminals whose best security was a section of country which
was without law and without even the pretence of it. When the “division-
agent” issued an order to one of these parties he did it with the full
understanding that he might have to enforce it with a navy six-shooter,
and so he always went “fixed” to make things go along smoothly.
Now and then a division-agent was really obliged to shoot a hostler
through the head to teach him some simple matter that he could have
taught him with a club if his circumstances and surroundings had been
different. But they were snappy, able men, those division-agents, and
when they tried to teach a subordinate anything, that subordinate
generally “got it through his head.”
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A great portion of this vast machinery—these hundreds of men and
coaches, and thousands of mules and horses—was in the hands of Mr. Ben
Holliday. All the western half of the business was in his hands. This
reminds me of an incident of Palestine travel which is pertinent here,
so I will transfer it just in the language in which I find it set down
in my Holy Land note-book:
No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday—a man of prodigious energy,
who used to send mails and passengers flying across the continent in his
overland stage-coaches like a very whirlwind—two thousand long miles in
fifteen days and a half, by the watch! But this fragment of history is
not about Ben Holliday, but about a young New York boy by the name of
Jack, who traveled with our small party of pilgrims in the Holy Land
(and who had traveled to California in Mr. Holliday’s overland coaches
three years before, and had by no means forgotten it or lost his gushing
admiration of Mr. H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy—a good-hearted
and always well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the city of New
York, and although he was bright and knew a great many useful things,
his Scriptural education had been a good deal neglected—to such a
degree, indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new to him, and
all Bible names mysteries that had never disturbed his virgin ear.
Also in our party was an elderly pilgrim who was the reverse of Jack, in
that he was learned in the Scriptures and an enthusiast concerning them.
He was our encyclopedia, and we were never tired of listening to his
speeches, nor he of making them. He never passed a celebrated locality,
from Bashan to Bethlehem, without illuminating it with an oration. One
day, when camped near the ruins of Jericho, he burst forth with
something like this:
“Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that bounds the
Jordan valley? The mountains of Moab, Jack! Think of it, my boy—the
actual mountains of Moab—renowned in Scripture history! We are actually
standing face to face with those illustrious crags and peaks—and for all
we know” [dropping his voice impressively], “our eyes may be resting at
this very moment upon the spot WHERE LIES THE MYSTERIOUS GRAVE OF MOSES!
Think of it, Jack!”
“Moses who?” (falling inflection).
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“Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—you ought to be
ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses, the great guide,
soldier, poet, lawgiver of ancient Israel! Jack, from this spot where we
stand, to Egypt, stretches a fearful desert three hundred miles in
extent—and across that desert that wonderful man brought the children of
Israel!—guiding them with unfailing sagacity for forty years over the
sandy desolation and among the obstructing rocks and hills, and landed
them at last, safe and sound, within sight of this very spot; and where
we now stand they entered the Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing!
It was a wonderful, wonderful thing to do, Jack! Think of it!”
“Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben Holliday would have
fetched them through in thirty-six hours!”
The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said anything that
was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded him or felt offended with
him—and nobody could but some ungenerous spirit incapable of excusing
the heedless blunders of a boy.
At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the “Crossing of the South
Platte,” _alias_ “Julesburg,” _alias_ “Overland City,” four hundred and
seventy miles from St. Joseph—the strangest, quaintest, funniest
frontier town that our untraveled eyes had ever stared at and been
astonished with.
CHAPTER VII.
It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us
such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless
solitude! We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric
people crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up
suddenly in this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City
as if we had never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to
spare was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous
affair, called a “mud-wagon”) and transfer our freight of mails.
Presently we got under way again. We came to the shallow, yellow, muddy
South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and
pigmy islands—a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of the
enormous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with
the naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on
either bank. The Platte was “up,” they said—which made me wish I could
see it when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They
said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands
were liable to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was
made to ford it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once
or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so
threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea
all our lives to be shipwrecked in a “mud-wagon” in the middle of a
desert at last. But we dragged through and sped away toward the setting
sun.
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Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles
from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or
six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a
party who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport
galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our
part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo
bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook
his horse and took to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter
for some twenty-four hours, but at last he began to soften little by
little, and finally he said:
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“Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks making
themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for
awhile. I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if
I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people—but of
course I couldn’t, the old ‘Allen’s’ so confounded comprehensive. I wish
those loafers had been up in the tree; they wouldn’t have wanted to
laugh so. If I had had a horse worth a cent—but no, the minute he saw
that buffalo bull wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up
in the air and stood on his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I took
him round the neck and laid close to him, and began to pray. Then he
came down and stood up on the other end awhile, and the bull actually
stopped pawing sand and bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle.
“Then the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow that sounded
perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally
prostrate my horse’s reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of him,
and I wish I may die if he didn’t stand on his head for a quarter of a
minute and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind—he was, as sure
as truth itself, and he really didn’t know what he was doing. Then the
bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down on all fours and
took a fresh start—and then for the next ten minutes he would actually
throw one hand-spring after another so fast that the bull began to get
unsettled, too, and didn’t know where to start in—and so he stood there
sneezing, and shovelling dust over his back, and bellowing every now and
then, and thinking he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for
breakfast, certain. Well, I was first out on his neck—the horse’s, not
the bull’s—and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head
up, and sometimes heels—but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be
ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you
might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away
some of my horse’s tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy
at the time), but _something_ made him hungry for solitude and suggested
to him to get up and hunt for it.
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“And then you ought to have seen that spider legged old skeleton go! and
you ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too—head down, tongue
out, tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the
weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a
whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and the saddle were back on
the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel
with both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we passed a jackass
rabbit; then we overtook a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when
the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to the left,
and as the saddle went down over the horse’s rump he gave it a lift with
his heels that sent it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I
wish I may die in a minute if he didn’t. I fell at the foot of the only
solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could
see with the naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the bark with
four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was
astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my
breath smell of brimstone. I _had_ the bull, now, if he did not think of
one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously.
There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there
were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in
case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I
sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle—”
“Your _saddle_? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you?”
“Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn’t.
No man could do that. It _fell_ in the tree when it came down.”
“Oh—exactly.”
“Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it to the
limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining
tons. I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see
the length. It reached down twenty-two feet—half way to the ground. I
then loaded every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I felt
satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of that _one_ thing that
I dread, all right—but if he does, all right anyhow—I am fixed for him.
But don’t you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that
always happens? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now, with
anxiety—anxiety which no one can conceive of who has not been in such a
situation and felt that at any moment death might come. Presently a
thought came into the bull’s eye. I knew it! said I—if my nerve fails
now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started in
to climb the tree—”
“What, the bull?”
“Of course—who else?”
“But a bull can’t climb a tree.”
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“He can’t, can’t he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a
bull try?”
“No! I never dreamt of such a thing.”
“Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you
never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can’t be done?”
“Well, all right—go on. What did you do?”
“The bull started up, and got along well for about ten feet, then
slipped and slid back. I breathed easier. He tried it again—got up a
little higher—slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this time
he was careful. He got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits went
down more and more. Up he came—an inch at a time—with his eyes hot, and
his tongue hanging out. Higher and higher—hitched his foot over the
stump of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, ‘You are my meat,
friend.’ Up again—higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer
he got. He was within ten feet of me! I took a long breath,—and then
said I, ‘It is now or never.’ I had the coil of the lariat all ready; I
paid it out slowly, till it hung right over his head; all of a sudden I
let go of the slack, and the slipnoose fell fairly round his neck!
Quicker than lightning I out with the Allen and let him have it in the
face. It was an awful roar, and must have scared the bull out of his
senses. When the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the air,
twenty foot from the ground, and going out of one convulsion into
another faster than you could count! I didn’t stop to count, anyhow—I
shinned down the tree and shot for home.”
“Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?”
“I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn’t.”
“Well, we can’t refuse to believe it, and we don’t. But if there were
some proofs—”
“Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?”
“No.”
“Did I bring back my horse?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see the bull again?”
“No.”
“Well, then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as particular as
you are about a little thing like that.”
I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by
the skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my
brief sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European citizens of a town
in the neighborhood of Bangkok had a prodigy among them by the name of
Eckert, an Englishman—a person famous for the number, ingenuity and
imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most
celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to “draw him out” before
strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the house
where I was visiting, but nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie.
One day a planter named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and
sometimes irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on
Eckert. As we jogged along, said he:
“Now, do you know where the fault lies? It lies in putting Eckert on his
guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly
well what they are after, and of course he shuts up his shell. Anybody
might know he would. But when we get there, we must play him finer than
that. Let him shape the conversation to suit himself—let him drop it or
change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that nobody is trying to
draw him out. Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget himself
and begin to grind out lies like a mill. Don’t get impatient—just keep
quiet, and let me play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me that
the boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple trick as
that.”
Eckert received us heartily—a pleasant-spoken, gentle-mannered creature.
We sat in the veranda an hour, sipping English ale, and talking about
the king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all
manner of things; and I noticed that my comrade never led the
conversation himself or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert’s lead,
and betrayed no solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was
shortly perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; he grew more
and more at his ease, and more and more talkative and sociable. Another
hour passed in the same way, and then all of a sudden Eckert said:
“Oh, by the way! I came near forgetting. I have got a thing here to
astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor any other man ever heard
of—I’ve got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Common green cocoanut—and not
only eat the meat, but drink the milk. It is so—I’ll swear to it.”
A quick glance from Bascom—a glance that I understood—then:
“Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is
impossible.”
“I knew you would say it. I’ll fetch the cat.”
He went in the house. Bascom said:
“There—what did I tell you? Now, that is the way to handle Eckert. You
see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his suspicions to sleep.
I am glad we came. You tell the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat
a cocoanut—oh, my! Now, that is just his way, exactly—he will tell the
absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again.
“Cat eat a cocoanut—the innocent fool!”
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Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.
Bascom smiled. Said he:
“I’ll hold the cat—you bring a cocoanut.”
Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bascom smuggled a
wink to me, and proffered a slice of the fruit to puss. She snatched it,
swallowed it ravenously, and asked for more!
We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At least I was silent,
though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal,
notwithstanding the horse was behaving well enough. When I branched off
homeward, Bascom said:
“Keep the horse till morning. And—you need not speak of this—foolishness
to the boys.”
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CHAPTER VIII.
In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and
watching for the “pony-rider”—the fleet messenger who sped across the
continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred
miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh
and blood to do! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man,
brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night
his watch came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer,
raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or whether his “beat” was a
level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices,
or whether it led through peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with
hostile Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be
off like the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He
rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, starlight, or
through the blackness of darkness—just as it happened. He rode a
splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed and lodged like a
gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he
came crashing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a
fresh, impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in
the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of
sight before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both
rider and horse went “flying light.” The rider’s dress was thin, and
fitted close; he wore a “round-about,” and a skull-cap, and tucked his
pantaloons into his boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms—he
carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage
on his literary freight was worth _five dollars a letter_.
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He got but little frivolous correspondence to carry—his bag had business
letters in it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight,
too. He wore a little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no visible blanket.
He wore light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets
strapped under the rider’s thighs would each hold about the bulk of a
child’s primer. They held many and many an important business chapter
and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin
as gold-leaf, nearly, and thus bulk and weight were economized. The
stage-coach traveled about a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles
a day (twenty-four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty.
There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night
and day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to
California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among
them making four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and
see a deal of scenery every single day in the year.
We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a pony-rider,
but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to
streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the
swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out
of the windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and
would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims:
“HERE HE COMES!”
Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away
across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears
against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so!
In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling,
rising and falling—sweeping toward us nearer and nearer—growing more and
more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still nearer,
and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another instant a
whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s hand, but
no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging
away like a belated fragment of a storm!
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So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for
the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack
after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we might have doubted
whether we had seen any actual horse and man at all, maybe.
We rattled through Scott’s Bluffs Pass, by and by. It was along here
somewhere that we first came across genuine and unmistakable alkali
water in the road, and we cordially hailed it as a first-class
curiosity, and a thing to be mentioned with eclat in letters to the
ignorant at home. This water gave the road a soapy appearance, and in
many places the ground looked as if it had been whitewashed. I think the
strange alkali water excited us as much as any wonder we had come upon
yet, and I know we felt very complacent and conceited, and better
satisfied with life after we had added it to our list of things which
_we_ had seen and some other people had not. In a small way we were the
same sort of simpletons as those who climb unnecessarily the perilous
peaks of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, and derive no pleasure from it
except the reflection that it isn’t a common experience. But once in a
while one of those parties trips and comes darting down the long
mountain-crags in a sitting posture, making the crusted snow smoke
behind him, flitting from bench to bench, and from terrace to terrace,
jarring the earth where he strikes, and still glancing and flitting on
again, sticking an iceberg into himself every now and then, and tearing
his clothes, snatching at things to save himself, taking hold of trees
and fetching them along with him, roots and all, starting little rocks
now and then, then big boulders, then acres of ice and snow and patches
of forest, gathering and still gathering as he goes, adding and still
adding to his massed and sweeping grandeur as he nears a three thousand-
foot precipice, till at last he waves his hat magnificently and rides
into eternity on the back of a raging and tossing avalanche!
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This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away by excitement, but
ask calmly, how does this person feel about it in his cooler moments
next day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of
him?
We crossed the sand hills near the scene of the Indian mail robbery and
massacre of 1856, wherein the driver and conductor perished, and also
all the passengers but one, it was supposed; but this must have been a
mistake, for at different times afterward on the Pacific coast I was
personally acquainted with a hundred and thirty-three or four people who
were wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped with their lives.
There was no doubt of the truth of it—I had it from their own lips. One
of these parties told me that he kept coming across arrow-heads in his
system for nearly seven years after the massacre; and another of them
told me that he was struck so literally full of arrows that after the
Indians were gone and he could raise up and examine himself, he could
not restrain his tears, for his clothes were completely ruined.
The most trustworthy tradition avers, however, that only one man, a
person named Babbitt, survived the massacre, and he was desperately
wounded. He dragged himself on his hands and knee (for one leg was
broken) to a station several miles away. He did it during portions of
two nights, lying concealed one day and part of another, and for more
than forty hours suffering unimaginable anguish from hunger, thirst and
bodily pain. The Indians robbed the coach of everything it contained,
including quite an amount of treasure.
CHAPTER IX.
We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we
found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow
(apparently) looming vast and solitary—a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in
hue, so portentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling brows
of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he
only seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge at our right. We
breakfasted at Horse-Shoe Station, six hundred and seventy-six miles out
from St. Joseph. We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during
the afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort
all the time we were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the
trees we dashed by at arm’s length concealed a lurking Indian or two.
During the preceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through
the pony-rider’s jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because
pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except
when killed. As long as they had life enough left in them they had to
stick to the horse and ride, even if the Indians had been waiting for
them a week, and were entirely out of patience. About two hours and a
half before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it
had fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air that
the Indian had “skipped around so’s to spile everything—and ammunition’s
blamed skurse, too.” The most natural inference conveyed by his manner
of speaking was, that in “skipping around,” the Indian had taken an
unfair advantage.
The coach we were in had a neat hole through its front—a reminiscence of
its last trip through this region. The bullet that made it wounded the
driver slightly, but he did not mind it much. He said the place to keep
a man “huffy” was down on the Southern Overland, among the Apaches,
before the company moved the stage line up on the northern route. He
said the Apaches used to annoy him all the time down there, and that he
came as near as anything to starving to death in the midst of abundance,
because they kept him so leaky with bullet holes that he “couldn’t hold
his vittles.” This person’s statements were not generally believed.
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We shut the blinds down very tightly that first night in the hostile
Indian country, and lay on our arms. We slept on them some, but most of
the time we only lay on them. We did not talk much, but kept quiet and
listened. It was an inky-black night, and occasionally rainy. We were
among woods and rocks, hills and gorges—so shut in, in fact, that when
we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we could discern nothing. The
driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long
intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible
dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the
grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of
the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable
from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of
remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and
swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of
the wheels. We listened a long time, with intent faculties and bated
breath; every time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh of relief
and start to say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a sudden
“Hark!” and instantly the experimenter was rigid and listening again. So
the tiresome minutes and decades of minutes dragged away, until at last
our tense forms filmed over with a dulled consciousness, and we slept,
if one might call such a condition by so strong a name—for it was a
sleep set with a hair-trigger. It was a sleep seething and teeming with
a weird and distressful confusion of shreds and fag-ends of dreams—a
sleep that was a chaos. Presently, dreams and sleep and the sullen hush
of the night were startled by a ringing report, and cloven by _such_ a
long, wild, agonizing shriek! Then we heard—ten steps from the stage—
“Help! help! help!” [It was our driver’s voice.]
“Kill him! Kill him like a dog!”
“I’m being murdered! Will no man lend me a pistol?”
“Look out! head him off! head him off!”
[Two pistol shots; a confusion of voices and the trampling of many feet,
as if a crowd were closing and surging together around some object;
several heavy, dull blows, as with a club; a voice that said
appealingly, “Don’t, gentlemen, please don’t—I’m a dead man!” Then a
fainter groan, and another blow, and away sped the stage into the
darkness, and left the grisly mystery behind us.]
What a startle it was! Eight seconds would amply cover the time it
occupied—maybe even five would do it. We only had time to plunge at a
curtain and unbuckle and unbutton part of it in an awkward and hindering
flurry, when our whip cracked sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and
thundering away, down a mountain “grade.”
We fed on that mystery the rest of the night—what was left of it, for it
was waning fast. It had to remain a present mystery, for all we could
get from the conductor in answer to our hails was something that
sounded, through the clatter of the wheels, like “Tell you in the
morning!”
So we lit our pipes and opened the corner of a curtain for a chimney,
and lay there in the dark, listening to each other’s story of how he
first felt and how many thousand Indians he first thought had hurled
themselves upon us, and what his remembrance of the subsequent sounds
was, and the order of their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but there
was never a theory that would account for our driver’s voice being out
there, nor yet account for his Indian murderers talking such good
English, if they _were_ Indians.
So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night comfortably away, our
boding anxiety being somehow marvelously dissipated by the real presence
of something to be anxious _about_.
We never did get much satisfaction about that dark occurrence. All that
we could make out of the odds and ends of the information we gathered in
the morning, was that the disturbance occurred at a station; that we
changed drivers there, and that the driver that got off there had been
talking roughly about some of the outlaws that infested the region (“for
there wasn’t a man around there but had a price on his head and didn’t
dare show himself in the settlements,” the conductor said); he had
talked roughly about these characters, and ought to have “drove up there
with his pistol cocked and ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun
business himself, because any softy would know they would be laying for
him.”
That was all we could gather, and we could see that neither the
conductor nor the new driver were much concerned about the matter. They
plainly had little respect for a man who would deliver offensive
opinions of people and then be so simple as to come into their presence
unprepared to “back his judgment,” as they pleasantly phrased the
killing of any fellow-being who did not like said opinions. And likewise
they plainly had a contempt for the man’s poor discretion in venturing
to rouse the wrath of such utterly reckless wild beasts as those
outlaws—and the conductor added:
“I tell you it’s as much as Slade himself wants to do!”
This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity. I cared
nothing now about the Indians, and even lost interest in the murdered
driver. There was such magic in that name, SLADE! Day or night, now, I
stood always ready to drop any subject in hand, to listen to something
new about Slade and his ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland
City, we had begun to hear about Slade and his “division” (for he was a
“division-agent”) on the Overland; and from the hour we had left
Overland City we had heard drivers and conductors talk about only three
things—“Californy,” the Nevada silver mines, and this desperado Slade.
And a deal the most of the talk was about Slade. We had gradually come
to have a realizing sense of the fact that Slade was a man whose heart
and hands and soul were steeped in the blood of offenders against his
dignity; a man who awfully avenged all injuries, affront, insults or
slights, of whatever kind—on the spot if he could, years afterward if
lack of earlier opportunity compelled it; a man whose hate tortured him
day and night till vengeance appeased it—and not an ordinary vengeance
either, but his enemy’s absolute death—nothing less; a man whose face
would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a foe and had him
at a disadvantage. A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an
outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once
the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that
inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains.
CHAPTER X.
Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had
been about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached
Julesburg. In order that the eastern reader may have a clear conception
of what a Rocky Mountain desperado is, in his highest state of
development, I will reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one
straightforward narrative, and present it in the following shape:
Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years
of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph,
Missouri, he joined one of the early California-bound emigrant trains,
and was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an
angry dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their
revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon
cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a
matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the
quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The unsuspecting driver agreed, and
threw down his pistol—whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and
shot him dead!
He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, dividing his time
between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois sheriff, who had been
sent to arrest him for his first murder. It is said that in one Indian
battle he killed three savages with his own hand, and afterward cut
their ears off and sent them, with his compliments, to the chief of the
tribe.
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Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this was
sufficient merit to procure for him the important post of overland
division-agent at Julesburg, in place of Mr. Jules, removed. For some
time previously, the company’s horses had been frequently stolen, and
the coaches delayed, by gangs of outlaws, who were wont to laugh at the
idea of any man’s having the temerity to resent such outrages. Slade
resented them promptly.
The outlaws soon found that the new agent was a man who did not fear
anything that breathed the breath of life. He made short work of all
offenders. The result was that delays ceased, the company’s property was
let alone, and no matter what happened or who suffered, Slade’s coaches
went through, every time! True, in order to bring about this wholesome
change, Slade had to kill several men—some say three, others say four,
and others six—but the world was the richer for their loss. The first
prominent difficulty he had was with the ex-agent Jules, who bore the
reputation of being a reckless and desperate man himself. Jules hated
Slade for supplanting him, and a good fair occasion for a fight was all
he was waiting for. By and by Slade dared to employ a man whom Jules had
once discharged. Next, Slade seized a team of stage-horses which he
accused Jules of having driven off and hidden somewhere for his own use.
War was declared, and for a day or two the two men walked warily about
the streets, seeking each other, Jules armed with a double-barreled shot
gun, and Slade with his history-creating revolver. Finally, as Slade
stepped into a store Jules poured the contents of his gun into him from
behind the door. Slade was pluck, and Jules got several bad pistol
wounds in return.
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Then both men fell, and were carried to their respective lodgings, both
swearing that better aim should do deadlier work next time. Both were
bedridden a long time, but Jules got to his feet first, and gathering
his possessions together, packed them on a couple of mules, and fled to
the Rocky Mountains to gather strength in safety against the day of
reckoning. For many months he was not seen or heard of, and was
gradually dropped out of the remembrance of all save Slade himself. But
Slade was not the man to forget him. On the contrary, common report said
that Slade kept a reward standing for his capture, dead or alive!
After awhile, seeing that Slade’s energetic administration had restored
peace and order to one of the worst divisions of the road, the overland
stage company transferred him to the Rocky Ridge division in the Rocky
Mountains, to see if he could perform a like miracle there. It was the
very paradise of outlaws and desperadoes. There was absolutely no
semblance of law there. Violence was the rule. Force was the only
recognized authority. The commonest misunderstandings were settled on
the spot with the revolver or the knife. Murders were done in open day,
and with sparkling frequency, and nobody thought of inquiring into them.
It was considered that the parties who did the killing had their private
reasons for it; for other people to meddle would have been looked upon
as indelicate. After a murder, all that Rocky Mountain etiquette
required of a spectator was, that he should help the gentleman bury his
game—otherwise his churlishness would surely be remembered against him
the first time he killed a man himself and needed a neighborly turn in
interring him.
Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully in the midst of this
hive of horse-thieves and assassins, and the very first time one of them
aired his insolent swaggerings in his presence he shot him dead! He
began a raid on the outlaws, and in a singularly short space of time he
had completely stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recovered
a large number of stolen horses, killed several of the worst desperadoes
of the district, and gained such a dread ascendancy over the rest that
they respected him, admired him, feared him, obeyed him! He wrought the
same marvelous change in the ways of the community that had marked his
administration at Overland City. He captured two men who had stolen
overland stock, and with his own hands he hanged them. He was supreme
judge in his district, and he was jury and executioner likewise—and not
only in the case of offences against his employers, but against passing
emigrants as well. On one occasion some emigrants had their stock lost
or stolen, and told Slade, who chanced to visit their camp. With a
single companion he rode to a ranch, the owners of which he suspected,
and opening the door, commenced firing, killing three, and wounding the
fourth.
From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book.—[“The Vigilantes
of Montana,” by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.]—I take this paragraph:
“While on the road, Slade held absolute sway. He would ride down to a
station, get into a quarrel, turn the house out of windows, and maltreat
the occupants most cruelly. The unfortunates had no means of redress,
and were compelled to recuperate as best they could.”
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On one of these occasions, it is said he killed the father of the fine
little half-breed boy Jemmy, whom he adopted, and who lived with his
widow after his execution. Stories of Slade’s hanging men, and of
innumerable assaults, shootings, stabbings and beatings, in which he was
a principal actor, form part of the legends of the stage line. As for
minor quarrels and shootings, it is absolutely certain that a minute
history of Slade’s life would be one long record of such practices.
“The Vigilantes of Montana” by Prof. Thomas J. Dimsdale
Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. The legends say
that one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw
a man approaching who had offended him some days before—observe the fine
memory he had for matters like that—and, “Gentlemen,” said Slade,
drawing, “it is a good twenty-yard shot—I’ll clip the third button on
his coat!” Which he did. The bystanders all admired it. And they all
attended the funeral, too.
On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-shelf at the station did
something which angered Slade—and went and made his will. A day or two
afterward Slade came in and called for some brandy. The man reached
under the counter (ostensibly to get a bottle—possibly to get something
else), but Slade smiled upon him that peculiarly bland and satisfied
smile of his which the neighbors had long ago learned to recognize as a
death-warrant in disguise, and told him to “none of that!—pass out the
high-priced article.” So the poor bar-keeper had to turn his back and
get the high-priced brandy from the shelf; and when he faced around
again he was looking into the muzzle of Slade’s pistol. “And the next
instant,” added my informant, impressively, “he was one of the deadest
men that ever lived.”
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The stage-drivers and conductors told us that sometimes Slade would
leave a hated enemy wholly unmolested, unnoticed and unmentioned, for
weeks together—had done it once or twice at any rate. And some said they
believed he did it in order to lull the victims into unwatchfulness, so
that he could get the advantage of them, and others said they believed
he saved up an enemy that way, just as a schoolboy saves up a cake, and
made the pleasure go as far as it would by gloating over the
anticipation. One of these cases was that of a Frenchman who had
offended Slade. To the surprise of everybody Slade did not kill him on
the spot, but let him alone for a considerable time. Finally, however,
he went to the Frenchman’s house very late one night, knocked, and when
his enemy opened the door, shot him dead—pushed the corpse inside the
door with his foot, set the house on fire and burned up the dead man,
his widow and three children! I heard this story from several different
people, and they evidently believed what they were saying. It may be
true, and it may not. “Give a dog a bad name,” etc.
Slade was captured, once, by a party of men who intended to lynch him.
They disarmed him, and shut him up in a strong log-house, and placed a
guard over him. He prevailed on his captors to send for his wife, so
that he might have a last interview with her. She was a brave, loving,
spirited woman. She jumped on a horse and rode for life and death. When
she arrived they let her in without searching her, and before the door
could be closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, and she and her
lord marched forth defying the party. And then, under a brisk fire, they
mounted double and galloped away unharmed!
In the fulness of time Slade’s myrmidons captured his ancient enemy
Jules, whom they found in a well-chosen hiding-place in the remote
fastnesses of the mountains, gaining a precarious livelihood with his
rifle. They brought him to Rocky Ridge, bound hand and foot, and
deposited him in the middle of the cattle-yard with his back against a
post. It is said that the pleasure that lit Slade’s face when he heard
of it was something fearful to contemplate. He examined his enemy to see
that he was securely tied, and then went to bed, content to wait till
morning before enjoying the luxury of killing him. Jules spent the night
in the cattle-yard, and it is a region where warm nights are never
known. In the morning Slade practised on him with his revolver, nipping
the flesh here and there, and occasionally clipping off a finger, while
Jules begged him to kill him outright and put him out of his misery.
Finally Slade reloaded, and walking up close to his victim, made some
characteristic remarks and then dispatched him. The body lay there half
a day, nobody venturing to touch it without orders, and then Slade
detailed a party and assisted at the burial himself. But he first cut
off the dead man’s ears and put them in his vest pocket, where he
carried them for some time with great satisfaction. That is the story as
I have frequently heard it told and seen it in print in California
newspapers. It is doubtless correct in all essential particulars.
In due time we rattled up to a stage-station, and sat down to breakfast
with a half-savage, half-civilized company of armed and bearded
mountaineers, ranchmen and station employees. The most gentlemanly-
appearing, quiet and affable officer we had yet found along the road in
the Overland Company’s service was the person who sat at the head of the
table, at my elbow. Never youth stared and shivered as I did when I
heard them call him SLADE!
Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with it!—looking upon
it—touching it—hobnobbing with it, as it were! Here, right by my side,
was the actual ogre who, in fights and brawls and various ways, _had
taken the lives of twenty-six human beings_, or all men lied about him!
I suppose I was the proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange
lands and wonderful people.
He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to him in spite of
his awful history. It was hardly possible to realize that this pleasant
person was the pitiless scourge of the outlaws, the raw-head-and-bloody-
bones the nursing mothers of the mountains terrified their children
with. And to this day I can remember nothing remarkable about Slade
except that his face was rather broad across the cheek bones, and that
the cheek bones were low and the lips peculiarly thin and straight. But
that was enough to leave something of an effect upon me, for since then
I seldom see a face possessing those characteristics without fancying
that the owner of it is a dangerous man.
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The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to one tin-cupful, and Slade
was about to take it when he saw that my cup was empty.
He politely offered to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely
declined. I was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning, and might
be needing diversion. But still with firm politeness he insisted on
filling my cup, and said I had traveled all night and better deserved it
than he—and while he talked he placidly poured the fluid, to the last
drop. I thanked him and drank it, but it gave me no comfort, for I could
not feel sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that he had given
it away, and proceed to kill me to distract his thoughts from the loss.
But nothing of the kind occurred. We left him with only twenty-six dead
people to account for, and I felt a tranquil satisfaction in the thought
that in so judiciously taking care of No. 1 at that breakfast-table I
had pleasantly escaped being No. 27. Slade came out to the coach and saw
us off, first ordering certain rearrangements of the mail-bags for our
comfort, and then we took leave of him, satisfied that we should hear of
him again, some day, and wondering in what connection.
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CHAPTER XI.
And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again.
News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana
(whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an
account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph
from in the last chapter—“The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable
Account of the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer’s Notorious
Road Agent Band: By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M.T.” Mr.
Dimsdale’s chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the
people of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove
inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks about Slade, both of which
are accurately descriptive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque:
“Those who saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be
a kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentleman; on the
contrary, those who met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by
a gang of armed roughs, would pronounce him a fiend incarnate.” And
this: “From Fort Kearney, west, _he was feared A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN
THE ALMIGHTY_.” For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expression, I
will “back” that sentence against anything in literature. Mr. Dimsdale’s
narrative is as follows. In all places where italics occur, they are
mine:
After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the
Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had freed
the country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and they
determined that in the absence of the regular civil authority they would
establish a People’s Court where all offenders should be tried by judge
and jury. This was the nearest approach to social order that the
circumstances permitted, and, though strict legal authority was wanting,
yet the people were firmly determined to maintain its efficiency, and to
enforce its decrees. It may here be mentioned that the overt act which
was the last round on the fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on which
Slade perished, was the tearing in pieces and stamping upon a writ of
this court, followed by his arrest of the Judge Alex. Davis, by
authority of a presented Derringer, and with his own hands.
J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante; he openly
boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew. He was never
accused, or even suspected, of either murder or robbery, committed in
this Territory (the latter crime was never laid to his charge, in any
place); but that he had killed several men in other localities was
notorious, and his bad reputation in this respect was a most powerful
argument in determining his fate, when he was finally arrested for the
offence above mentioned. On returning from Milk River he became more and
more addicted to drinking, until at last it was a common feat for him
and his friends to “take the town.” He and a couple of his dependents
might often be seen on one horse, galloping through the streets,
shouting and yelling, firing revolvers, etc. On many occasions he would
ride his horse into stores, break up bars, toss the scales out of doors
and use most insulting language to parties present. Just previous to the
day of his arrest, he had given a fearful beating to one of his
followers; but such was his influence over them that the man wept
bitterly at the gallows, and begged for his life with all his power. It
had become quite common, when Slade was on a spree, for the shop-keepers
and citizens to close the stores and put out all the lights; being
fearful of some outrage at his hands. For his wanton destruction of
goods and furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober, if he had
money; but there were not a few who regarded payment as small
satisfaction for the outrage, and these men were his personal enemies.
From time to time Slade received warnings from men that he well knew
would not deceive him, of the certain end of his conduct. There was not
a moment, for weeks previous to his arrest, in which the public did not
expect to hear of some bloody outrage. The dread of his very name, and
the presence of the armed band of hangers-on who followed him alone
prevented a resistance which must certainly have ended in the instant
murder or mutilation of the opposing party.
Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court whose organization
we have described, and had treated it with respect by paying one or two
fines and promising to pay the rest when he had money; but in the
transaction that occurred at this crisis, he forgot even this caution,
and goaded by passion and the hatred of restraint, he sprang into the
embrace of death.
Slade had been drunk and “cutting up” all night. He and his companions
had made the town a perfect hell. In the morning, J. M. Fox, the
sheriff, met him, arrested him, took him into court and commenced
reading a warrant that he had for his arrest, by way of arraignment. He
became uncontrollably furious, and seizing the writ, he tore it up,
threw it on the ground and stamped upon it.
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The clicking of the locks of his companions’ revolvers was instantly
heard, and a crisis was expected. The sheriff did not attempt his
retention; but being at least as prudent as he was valiant, he
succumbed, leaving Slade the master of the situation and the conqueror
and ruler of the courts, law and law-makers. This was a declaration of
war, and was so accepted. The Vigilance Committee now felt that the
question of social order and the preponderance of the law-abiding
citizens had then and there to be decided. They knew the character of
Slade, and they were well aware that they must submit to his rule
without murmur, or else that he must be dealt with in such fashion as
would prevent his being able to wreak his vengeance on the committee,
who could never have hoped to live in the Territory secure from outrage
or death, and who could never leave it without encountering his friends,
whom his victory would have emboldened and stimulated to a pitch that
would have rendered them reckless of consequences. The day previous he
had ridden into Dorris’s store, and on being requested to leave, he drew
his revolver and threatened to kill the gentleman who spoke to him.
Another saloon he had led his horse into, and buying a bottle of wine,
he tried to make the animal drink it. This was not considered an
uncommon performance, as he had often entered saloons and commenced
firing at the lamps, causing a wild stampede.
A leading member of the committee met Slade, and informed him in the
quiet, earnest manner of one who feels the importance of what he is
saying: “Slade, get your horse at once, and go home, or there will
be——to pay.” Slade started and took a long look, with his dark and
piercing eyes, at the gentleman. “What do you mean?” said he. “You have
no right to ask me what I mean,” was the quiet reply, “get your horse at
once, and remember what I tell you.” After a short pause he promised to
do so, and actually got into the saddle; but, being still intoxicated,
he began calling aloud to one after another of his friends, and at last
seemed to have forgotten the warning he had received and became again
uproarious, shouting the name of a well-known courtezan in company with
those of two men whom he considered heads of the committee, as a sort of
challenge; perhaps, however, as a simple act of bravado. It seems
probable that the intimation of personal danger he had received had not
been forgotten entirely; though fatally for him, he took a foolish way
of showing his remembrance of it. He sought out Alexander Davis, the
Judge of the Court, and drawing a cocked Derringer, he presented it at
his head, and told him that he should hold him as a hostage for his own
safety. As the judge stood perfectly quiet, and offered no resistance to
his captor, no further outrage followed on this score. Previous to this,
on account of the critical state of affairs, the committee had met, and
at last resolved to arrest him. His execution had not been agreed upon,
and, at that time, would have been negatived, most assuredly. A
messenger rode down to Nevada to inform the leading men of what was on
hand, as it was desirable to show that there was a feeling of unanimity
on the subject, all along the gulch.
The miners turned out almost en masse, leaving their work and forming in
solid column about six hundred strong, armed to the teeth, they marched
up to Virginia. The leader of the body well knew the temper of his men
on the subject. He spurred on ahead of them, and hastily calling a
meeting of the executive, he told them plainly that the miners meant
“business,” and that, if they came up, they would not stand in the
street to be shot down by Slade’s friends; but that they would take him
and hang him. The meeting was small, as the Virginia men were loath to
act at all. This momentous announcement of the feeling of the Lower Town
was made to a cluster of men, who were deliberating behind a wagon, at
the rear of a store on Main street.
The committee were most unwilling to proceed to extremities. All the
duty they had ever performed seemed as nothing to the task before them;
but they had to decide, and that quickly. It was finally agreed that if
the whole body of the miners were of the opinion that he should be
hanged, that the committee left it in their hands to deal with him. Off,
at hot speed, rode the leader of the Nevada men to join his command.
Slade had found out what was intended, and the news sobered him
instantly. He went into P. S. Pfouts’ store, where Davis was, and
apologized for his conduct, saying that he would take it all back.
The head of the column now wheeled into Wallace street and marched up at
quick time. Halting in front of the store, the executive officer of the
committee stepped forward and arrested Slade, who was at once informed
of his doom, and inquiry was made as to whether he had any business to
settle. Several parties spoke to him on the subject; but to all such
inquiries he turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed in the
terrifying reflections on his own awful position. He never ceased his
entreaties for life, and to see his dear wife. The unfortunate lady
referred to, between whom and Slade there existed a warm affection, was
at this time living at their ranch on the Madison. She was possessed of
considerable personal attractions; tall, well-formed, of graceful
carriage, pleasing manners, and was, withal, an accomplished horsewoman.
A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of her husband’s
arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle, and with all the energy
that love and despair could lend to an ardent temperament and a strong
physique, she urged her fleet charger over the twelve miles of rough and
rocky ground that intervened between her and the object of her
passionate devotion.
Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary preparations for
the execution, in the valley traversed by the branch. Beneath the site
of Pfouts and Russell’s stone building there was a corral, the gate-
posts of which were strong and high. Across the top was laid a beam, to
which the rope was fastened, and a dry-goods box served for the
platform. To this place Slade was marched, surrounded by a guard,
composing the best armed and most numerous force that has ever appeared
in Montana Territory.
The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers and
lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the
fatal beam. He repeatedly exclaimed, “My God! my God! must I die? Oh, my
dear wife!”
On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some friends of
Slade, staunch and reliable citizens and members of the committee, but
who were personally attached to the condemned. On hearing of his
sentence, one of them, a stout-hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief
and walked away, weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his
wife, most piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request; but the
bloody consequences that were sure to follow the inevitable attempt at a
rescue, that her presence and entreaties would have certainly incited,
forbade the granting of his request. Several gentlemen were sent for to
see him, in his last moments, one of whom (Judge Davis) made a short
address to the people; but in such low tones as to be inaudible, save to
a few in his immediate vicinity. One of his friends, after exhausting
his powers of entreaty, threw off his coat and declared that the
prisoner could not be hanged until he himself was killed. A hundred guns
were instantly leveled at him; whereupon he turned and fled; but, being
brought back, he was compelled to resume his coat, and to give a promise
of future peaceable demeanor.
Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though numbers of the
citizens joined the ranks of the guard when the arrest was made. All
lamented the stern necessity which dictated the execution.
Everything being ready, the command was given, “Men, do your duty,” and
the box being instantly slipped from beneath his feet, he died almost
instantaneously.
The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel, where, in a
darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when the unfortunate and
bereaved companion of the deceased arrived, at headlong speed, to find
that all was over, and that she was a widow. Her grief and heart-
piercing cries were terrible evidences of the depth of her attachment
for her lost husband, and a considerable period elapsed before she could
regain the command of her excited feelings.
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There is something about the desperado-nature that is wholly
unaccountable—at least it looks unaccountable. It is this. The true
desperado is gifted with splendid courage, and yet he will take the most
infamous advantage of his enemy; armed and free, he will stand up before
a host and fight until he is shot all to pieces, and yet when he is
under the gallows and helpless he will cry and plead like a child. Words
are cheap, and it is easy to call Slade a coward (all executed men who
do not “die game” are promptly called cowards by unreflecting people),
and when we read of Slade that he “had so exhausted himself by tears,
prayers and lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand
under the fatal beam,” the disgraceful word suggests itself in a
moment—yet in frequently defying and inviting the vengeance of banded
Rocky Mountain cut-throats by shooting down their comrades and leaders,
and never offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he was a man of
peerless bravery. No coward would dare that. Many a notorious coward,
many a chicken-livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his
dying speech without a quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity
with what looked liked the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in
believing, from the low intellect of such a creature, that it was not
_moral_ courage that enabled him to do it. Then, if moral courage is not
the requisite quality, what could it have been that this stout-hearted
Slade lacked?—this bloody, desperate, kindly-mannered, urbane gentleman,
who never hesitated to warn his most ruffianly enemies that he would
kill them whenever or wherever he came across them next! I think it is a
conundrum worth investigating.
CHAPTER XII.
Just beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon emigrant train of
thirty-three wagons; and tramping wearily along and driving their herd
of loose cows, were dozens of coarse-clad and sad-looking men, women and
children, who had walked as they were walking now, day after day for
eight lingering weeks, and in that time had compassed the distance our
stage had come in _eight days and three hours_—seven hundred and ninety-
eight miles! They were dusty and uncombed, hatless, bonnetless and
ragged, and they did look so tired!
After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a (previously) limpid,
sparkling stream—an appreciated luxury, for it was very seldom that our
furious coach halted long enough for an indulgence of that kind. We
changed horses ten or twelve times in every twenty-four hours—changed
mules, rather—six mules—and did it nearly every time in _four minutes_.
It was lively work. As our coach rattled up to each station six
harnessed mules stepped gayly from the stable; and in the twinkling of
an eye, almost, the old team was out, and the new one in and we off and
away again.
During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek, Independence Rock,
Devil’s Gate and the Devil’s Gap. The latter were wild specimens of
rugged scenery, and full of interest—_we were in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains, now_. And we also passed by “Alkali” or “Soda Lake,” and we
woke up to the fact that our journey had stretched a long way across the
world when the driver said that the Mormons often came there from Great
Salt Lake City to haul away saleratus. He said that a few days gone by
they had shoveled up enough pure saleratus from the ground (it was a
_dry_ lake) to load two wagons, and that when they got these two wagons-
loads of a drug that cost them nothing, to Salt Lake, they could sell it
for twenty-five cents a pound.
In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity, and one we had been
hearing a good deal about for a day or two, and were suffering to see.
This was what might be called a natural ice-house. It was August, now,
and sweltering weather in the daytime, yet at one of the stations the
men could scape the soil on the hill-side under the lee of a range of
boulders, and at a depth of six inches cut out pure blocks of ice—hard,
compactly frozen, and clear as crystal!
Toward dawn we got under way again, and presently as we sat with raised
curtains enjoying our early-morning smoke and contemplating the first
splendor of the rising sun as it swept down the long array of mountain
peaks, flushing and gilding crag after crag and summit after summit, as
if the invisible Creator reviewed his gray veterans and they saluted
with a smile, we hove in sight of South Pass City. The hotel-keeper, the
postmaster, the blacksmith, the mayor, the constable, the city marshal
and the principal citizen and property holder, all came out and greeted
us cheerily, and we gave him good day. He gave us a little Indian news,
and a little Rocky Mountain news, and we gave him some Plains
information in return. He then retired to his lonely grandeur and we
climbed on up among the bristling peaks and the ragged clouds. South
Pass City consisted of four log cabins, one of which was unfinished, and
the gentleman with all those offices and titles was the chiefest of the
ten citizens of the place. Think of hotel-keeper, postmaster,
blacksmith, mayor, constable, city marshal and principal citizen all
condensed into one person and crammed into one skin. Bemis said he was
“a perfect Allen’s revolver of dignities.” And he said that if he were
to die as postmaster, or as blacksmith, or as postmaster and blacksmith
both, the people might stand it; but if he were to die all over, it
would be a frightful loss to the community.
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Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for the first time that
mysterious marvel which all Western untraveled boys have heard of and
fully believe in, but are sure to be astounded at when they see it with
their own eyes, nevertheless—banks of snow in dead summer time. We were
now far up toward the sky, and knew all the time that we must presently
encounter lofty summits clad in the “eternal snow” which was so common
place a matter of mention in books, and yet when I did see it glittering
in the sun on stately domes in the distance and knew the month was
August and that my coat was hanging up because it was too warm to wear
it, I was full as much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in August
before. Truly, “seeing is believing”—and many a man lives a long life
through, thinking he believes certain universally received and well
established things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted by
those things once, he would discover that he did not really believe them
before, but only thought he believed them.
In a little while quite a number of peaks swung into view with long
claws of glittering snow clasping them; and with here and there, in the
shade, down the mountain side, a little solitary patch of snow looking
no larger than a lady’s pocket-handkerchief but being in reality as
large as a “public square.”
And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned SOUTH PASS, and
whirling gayly along high above the common world. We were perched upon
the extreme summit of the great range of the Rocky Mountains, toward
which we had been climbing, patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing,
for days and nights together—and about us was gathered a convention of
Nature’s kings that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen thousand feet
high—grand old fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount Washington,
in the twilight. We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping
populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags
stood out of the way it seemed that we could look around and abroad and
contemplate the whole great globe, with its dissolving views of
mountains, seas and continents stretching away through the mystery of
the summer haze.
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As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive of a valley than a
suspension bridge in the clouds—but it strongly suggested the latter at
one spot. At that place the upper third of one or two majestic purple
domes projected above our level on either hand and gave us a sense of a
hidden great deep of mountains and plains and valleys down about their
bases which we fancied we might see if we could step to the edge and
look over. These Sultans of the fastnesses were turbaned with tumbled
volumes of cloud, which shredded away from time to time and drifted off
fringed and torn, trailing their continents of shadow after them; and
catching presently on an intercepting peak, wrapped it about and brooded
there—then shredded away again and left the purple peak, as they had
left the purple domes, downy and white with new-laid snow. In passing,
these monstrous rags of cloud hung low and swept along right over the
spectator’s head, swinging their tatters so nearly in his face that his
impulse was to shrink when they came closest. In the one place I speak
of, one could look below him upon a world of diminishing crags and
canyons leading down, down, and away to a vague plain with a thread in
it which was a road, and bunches of feathers in it which were trees,—a
pretty picture sleeping in the sunlight—but with a darkness stealing
over it and glooming its features deeper and deeper under the frown of a
coming storm; and then, while no film or shadow marred the noon
brightness of his high perch, he could watch the tempest break forth
down there and see the lightnings leap from crag to crag and the sheeted
rain drive along the canyon-sides, and hear the thunders peal and crash
and roar. We had this spectacle; a familiar one to many, but to us a
novelty.
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We bowled along cheerily, and presently, at the very summit (though it
had been all summit to us, and all equally level, for half an hour or
more), we came to a spring which spent its water through two outlets and
sent it in opposite directions. The conductor said that one of those
streams which we were looking at, was just starting on a journey
westward to the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean, through
hundreds and even thousands of miles of desert solitudes. He said that
the other was just leaving its home among the snow-peaks on a similar
journey eastward—and we knew that long after we should have forgotten
the simple rivulet it would still be plodding its patient way down the
mountain sides, and canyon-beds, and between the banks of the
Yellowstone; and by and by would join the broad Missouri and flow
through unknown plains and deserts and unvisited wildernesses; and add a
long and troubled pilgrimage among snags and wrecks and sandbars; and
enter the Mississippi, touch the wharves of St. Louis and still drift
on, traversing shoals and rocky channels, then endless chains of
bottomless and ample bends, walled with unbroken forests, then
mysterious byways and secret passages among woody islands, then the
chained bends again, bordered with wide levels of shining sugar-cane in
place of the sombre forests; then by New Orleans and still other chains
of bends—and finally, after two long months of daily and nightly
harassment, excitement, enjoyment, adventure, and awful peril of parched
throats, pumps and evaporation, pass the Gulf and enter into its rest
upon the bosom of the tropic sea, never to look upon its snow-peaks
again or regret them.
I freighted a leaf with a mental message for the friends at home, and
dropped it in the stream. But I put no stamp on it and it was held for
postage somewhere.
On the summit we overtook an emigrant train of many wagons, many tired
men and women, and many a disgusted sheep and cow.
In the wofully dusty horseman in charge of the expedition I recognized
John ——. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky
Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should
have looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for
years. But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it
had never been renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been
accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third
story of a building and overlooked the street. One day this editor gave
me a watermelon which I made preparations to devour on the spot, but
chancing to look out of the window, I saw John standing directly under
it and an irresistible desire came upon me to drop the melon on his
head, which I immediately did. I was the loser, for it spoiled the
melon, and John never forgave me and we dropped all intercourse and
parted, but now met again under these circumstances.
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We recognized each other simultaneously, and hands were grasped as
warmly as if no coldness had ever existed between us, and no allusion
was made to any. All animosities were buried and the simple fact of
meeting a familiar face in that isolated spot so far from home, was
sufficient to make us forget all things but pleasant ones, and we parted
again with sincere “good-bye” and “God bless you” from both.
We had been climbing up the long shoulders of the Rocky Mountains for
many tedious hours—we started _down_ them, now. And we went spinning
away at a round rate too.
We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and Uinta Mountains behind, and
sped away, always through splendid scenery but occasionally through long
ranks of white skeletons of mules and oxen—monuments of the huge
emigration of other days—and here and there were up-ended boards or
small piles of stones which the driver said marked the resting-place of
more precious remains.
It was the loneliest land for a grave! A land given over to the cayote
and the raven—which is but another name for desolation and utter
solitude. On damp, murky nights, these scattered skeletons gave forth a
soft, hideous glow, like very faint spots of moonlight starring the
vague desert. It was because of the phosphorus in the bones. But no
scientific explanation could keep a body from shivering when he drifted
by one of those ghostly lights and knew that a skull held it.
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At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw anything like it—indeed, I
did not even see this, for it was too dark. We fastened down the
curtains and even caulked them with clothing, but the rain streamed in
in twenty places, nothwithstanding. There was no escape. If one moved
his feet out of a stream, he brought his body under one; and if he moved
his body he caught one somewhere else. If he struggled out of the
drenched blankets and sat up, he was bound to get one down the back of
his neck. Meantime the stage was wandering about a plain with gaping
gullies in it, for the driver could not see an inch before his face nor
keep the road, and the storm pelted so pitilessly that there was no
keeping the horses still. With the first abatement the conductor turned
out with lanterns to look for the road, and the first dash he made was
into a chasm about fourteen feet deep, his lantern following like a
meteor. As soon as he touched bottom he sang out frantically:
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“Don’t come here!”
To which the driver, who was looking over the precipice where he had
disappeared, replied, with an injured air: “Think I’m a dam fool?”
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The conductor was more than an hour finding the road—a matter which
showed us how far we had wandered and what chances we had been taking.
He traced our wheel-tracks to the imminent verge of danger, in two
places. I have always been glad that we were not killed that night. I do
not know any particular reason, but I have always been glad. In the
morning, the tenth day out, we crossed Green River, a fine, large,
limpid stream—stuck in it with the water just up to the top of our mail-
bed, and waited till extra teams were put on to haul us up the steep
bank. But it was nice cool water, and besides it could not find any
fresh place on us to wet.
At the Green River station we had breakfast—hot biscuits, fresh antelope
steaks, and coffee—the only decent meal we tasted between the United
States and Great Salt Lake City, and the only one we were ever really
thankful for.
Think of the monotonous execrableness of the thirty that went before it,
to leave this one simple breakfast looming up in my memory like a shot-
tower after all these years have gone by!
At five P.M. we reached Fort Bridger, one hundred and seventeen miles
from the South Pass, and one thousand and twenty-five miles from St.
Joseph. Fifty-two miles further on, near the head of Echo Canyon, we met
sixty United States soldiers from Camp Floyd. The day before, they had
fired upon three hundred or four hundred Indians, whom they supposed
gathered together for no good purpose. In the fight that had ensued,
four Indians were captured, and the main body chased four miles, but
nobody killed. This looked like business. We had a notion to get out and
join the sixty soldiers, but upon reflecting that there were four
hundred of the Indians, we concluded to go on and join the Indians.
Echo Canyon is twenty miles long. It was like a long, smooth, narrow
street, with a gradual descending grade, and shut in by enormous
perpendicular walls of coarse conglomerate, four hundred feet high in
many places, and turreted like mediaeval castles. This was the most
faultless piece of road in the mountains, and the driver said he would
“let his team out.” He did, and if the Pacific express trains whiz
through there now any faster than we did then in the stage-coach, I envy
the passengers the exhilaration of it. We fairly seemed to pick up our
wheels and fly—and the mail matter was lifted up free from everything
and held in solution! I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a
thing I mean it.
However, time presses. At four in the afternoon we arrived on the summit
of Big Mountain, fifteen miles from Salt Lake City, when all the world
was glorified with the setting sun, and the most stupendous panorama of
mountain peaks yet encountered burst on our sight. We looked out upon
this sublime spectacle from under the arch of a brilliant rainbow! Even
the overland stage-driver stopped his horses and gazed!
Half an hour or an hour later, we changed horses, and took supper with a
Mormon “Destroying Angel.”
“Destroying Angels,” as I understand it, are Latter-Day Saints who are
set apart by the Church to conduct permanent disappearances of obnoxious
citizens. I had heard a deal about these Mormon Destroying Angels and
the dark and bloody deeds they had done, and when I entered this one’s
house I had my shudder all ready. But alas for all our romances, he was
nothing but a loud, profane, offensive, old blackguard! He was murderous
enough, possibly, to fill the bill of a Destroyer, but would you have
_any_ kind of an Angel devoid of dignity? Could you abide an Angel in an
unclean shirt and no suspenders? Could you respect an Angel with a
horse-laugh and a swagger like a buccaneer?
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There were other blackguards present—comrades of this one. And there was
one person that looked like a gentleman—Heber C. Kimball’s son, tall and
well made, and thirty years old, perhaps. A lot of slatternly women
flitted hither and thither in a hurry, with coffee-pots, plates of
bread, and other appurtenances to supper, and these were said to be the
wives of the Angel—or some of them, at least. And of course they were;
for if they had been hired “help” they would not have let an angel from
above storm and swear at them as he did, let alone one from the place
this one hailed from.
This was our first experience of the western “peculiar institution,” and
it was not very prepossessing. We did not tarry long to observe it, but
hurried on to the home of the Latter-Day Saints, the stronghold of the
prophets, the capital of the only absolute monarch in America—Great Salt
Lake City. As the night closed in we took sanctuary in the Salt Lake
House and unpacked our baggage.
CHAPTER XIII.
We had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls and vegetables—a
great variety and as great abundance. We walked about the streets some,
afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was fascination
in surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon.
This was fairy-land to us, to all intents and purposes—a land of
enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery. We felt a curiosity to ask
every child how many mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart;
and we experienced a thrill every time a dwelling-house door opened and
shut as we passed, disclosing a glimpse of human heads and backs and
shoulders—for we so longed to have a good satisfying look at a Mormon
family in all its comprehensive ampleness, disposed in the customary
concentric rings of its home circle.
By and by the Acting Governor of the Territory introduced us to other
“Gentiles,” and we spent a sociable hour with them. “Gentiles” are
people who are not Mormons. Our fellow-passenger, Bemis, took care of
himself, during this part of the evening, and did not make an
overpowering success of it, either, for he came into our room in the
hotel about eleven o’clock, full of cheerfulness, and talking loosely,
disjointedly and indiscriminately, and every now and then tugging out a
ragged word by the roots that had more hiccups than syllables in it.
This, together with his hanging his coat on the floor on one side of a
chair, and his vest on the floor on the other side, and piling his pants
on the floor just in front of the same chair, and then comtemplating the
general result with superstitious awe, and finally pronouncing it “too
many for _him_” and going to bed with his boots on, led us to fear that
something he had eaten had not agreed with him.
But we knew afterward that it was something he had been drinking. It was
the exclusively Mormon refresher, “valley tan.”
Valley tan (or, at least, one form of valley tan) is a kind of whisky,
or first cousin to it; is of Mormon invention and manufactured only in
Utah. Tradition says it is made of (imported) fire and brimstone. If I
remember rightly no public drinking saloons were allowed in the kingdom
by Brigham Young, and no private drinking permitted among the faithful,
except they confined themselves to “valley tan.”
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Next day we strolled about everywhere through the broad, straight, level
streets, and enjoyed the pleasant strangeness of a city of fifteen
thousand inhabitants with no loafers perceptible in it; and no visible
drunkards or noisy people; a limpid stream rippling and dancing through
every street in place of a filthy gutter; block after block of trim
dwellings, built of “frame” and sunburned brick—a great thriving orchard
and garden behind every one of them, apparently—branches from the street
stream winding and sparkling among the garden beds and fruit trees—and a
grand general air of neatness, repair, thrift and comfort, around and
about and over the whole. And everywhere were workshops, factories, and
all manner of industries; and intent faces and busy hands were to be
seen wherever one looked; and in one’s ears was the ceaseless clink of
hammers, the buzz of trade and the contented hum of drums and fly-
wheels.
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The armorial crest of my own State consisted of two dissolute bears
holding up the head of a dead and gone cask between them and making the
pertinent remark, “UNITED, WE STAND—(hic!)—DIVIDED, WE FALL.” It was
always too figurative for the author of this book. But the Mormon crest
was easy. And it was simple, unostentatious, and fitted like a glove. It
was a representation of a GOLDEN BEEHIVE, with the bees all at work!
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The city lies in the edge of a level plain as broad as the State of
Connecticut, and crouches close down to the ground under a curving wall
of mighty mountains whose heads are hidden in the clouds, and whose
shoulders bear relics of the snows of winter all the summer long.
Seen from one of these dizzy heights, twelve or fifteen miles off, Great
Salt Lake City is toned down and diminished till it is suggestive of a
child’s toy-village reposing under the majestic protection of the
Chinese wall.
On some of those mountains, to the southwest, it had been raining every
day for two weeks, but not a drop had fallen in the city. And on hot
days in late spring and early autumn the citizens could quit fanning and
growling and go out and cool off by looking at the luxury of a glorious
snow-storm going on in the mountains. They could enjoy it at a distance,
at those seasons, every day, though no snow would fall in their streets,
or anywhere near them.
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Salt Lake City was healthy—an extremely healthy city. They declared
there was only one physician in the place and he was arrested every week
regularly and held to answer under the vagrant act for having “no
visible means of support.” They always give you a good substantial
article of truth in Salt Lake, and good measure and good weight, too.
[Very often, if you wished to weigh one of their airiest little
commonplace statements you would want the hay scales.]
We desired to visit the famous inland sea, the American “Dead Sea,” the
great Salt Lake—seventeen miles, horseback, from the city—for we had
dreamed about it, and thought about it, and talked about it, and yearned
to see it, all the first part of our trip; but now when it was only
arm’s length away it had suddenly lost nearly every bit of its interest.
And so we put it off, in a sort of general way, till next day—and that
was the last we ever thought of it. We dined with some hospitable
Gentiles; and visited the foundation of the prodigious temple; and
talked long with that shrewd Connecticut Yankee, Heber C. Kimball (since
deceased), a saint of high degree and a mighty man of commerce.
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We saw the “Tithing-House,” and the “Lion House,” and I do not know or
remember how many more church and government buildings of various kinds
and curious names. We flitted hither and thither and enjoyed every hour,
and picked up a great deal of useful information and entertaining
nonsense, and went to bed at night satisfied.
The second day, we made the acquaintance of Mr. Street (since deceased)
and put on white shirts and went and paid a state visit to the king. He
seemed a quiet, kindly, easy-mannered, dignified, self-possessed old
gentleman of fifty-five or sixty, and had a gentle craft in his eye that
probably belonged there. He was very simply dressed and was just taking
off a straw hat as we entered. He talked about Utah, and the Indians,
and Nevada, and general American matters and questions, with our
secretary and certain government officials who came with us. But he
never paid any attention to me, notwithstanding I made several attempts
to “draw him out” on federal politics and his high handed attitude
toward Congress. I thought some of the things I said were rather fine.
But he merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I
have seen a benignant old cat look around to see which kitten was
meddling with her tail.
By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the
end, hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant
savage. But he was calm. His conversation with those gentlemen flowed on
as sweetly and peacefully and musically as any summer brook. When the
audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his
hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my
brother:
“Ah—your child, I presume? Boy, or girl?”
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CHAPTER XIV.
Mr. Street was very busy with his telegraphic matters—and considering
that he had eight or nine hundred miles of rugged, snowy, uninhabited
mountains, and waterless, treeless, melancholy deserts to traverse with
his wire, it was natural and needful that he should be as busy as
possible. He could not go comfortably along and cut his poles by the
road-side, either, but they had to be hauled by ox teams across those
exhausting deserts—and it was two days’ journey from water to water, in
one or two of them. Mr. Street’s contract was a vast work, every way one
looked at it; and yet to comprehend what the vague words “eight hundred
miles of rugged mountains and dismal deserts” mean, one must go over the
ground in person—pen and ink descriptions cannot convey the dreary
reality to the reader. And after all, Mr. S.’s mightiest difficulty
turned out to be one which he had never taken into the account at all.
Unto Mormons he had sub-let the hardest and heaviest half of his great
undertaking, and all of a sudden they concluded that they were going to
make little or nothing, and so they tranquilly threw their poles
overboard in mountain or desert, just as it happened when they took the
notion, and drove home and went about their customary business! They
were under written contract to Mr. Street, but they did not care
anything for that. They said they would “admire” to see a “Gentile”
force a Mormon to fulfil a losing contract in Utah! And they made
themselves very merry over the matter. Street said—for it was he that
told us these things:
“I was in dismay. I was under heavy bonds to complete my contract in a
given time, and this disaster looked very much like ruin. It was an
astounding thing; it was such a wholly unlooked-for difficulty, that I
was entirely nonplussed. I am a business man—have always been a business
man—do not know anything _but_ business—and so you can imagine how like
being struck by lightning it was to find myself in a country _where
written contracts were worthless!_—that main security, that sheet-
anchor, that absolute necessity, of business. My confidence left me.
There was no use in making new contracts—that was plain. I talked with
first one prominent citizen and then another. They all sympathized with
me, first rate, but they did not know how to help me. But at last a
Gentile said, ‘Go to Brigham Young!—these small fry cannot do you any
good.’ I did not think much of the idea, for if the _law_ could not help
me, what could an individual do who had not even anything to do with
either making the laws or executing them? He might be a very good
patriarch of a church and preacher in its tabernacle, but something
sterner than religion and moral suasion was needed to handle a hundred
refractory, half-civilized sub-contractors. But what was a man to do? I
thought if Mr. Young could not do anything else, he might probably be
able to give me some advice and a valuable hint or two, and so I went
straight to him and laid the whole case before him. He said very little,
but he showed strong interest all the way through. He examined all the
papers in detail, and whenever there seemed anything like a hitch,
either in the papers or my statement, he would go back and take up the
thread and follow it patiently out to an intelligent and satisfactory
result. Then he made a list of the contractors’ names. Finally he said:
“‘Mr. Street, this is all perfectly plain. These contracts are strictly
and legally drawn, and are duly signed and certified. These men
manifestly entered into them with their eyes open. I see no fault or
flaw anywhere.’
“Then Mr. Young turned to a man waiting at the other end of the room and
said: ‘Take this list of names to So-and-so, and tell him to have these
men here at such-and-such an hour.’
“They were there, to the minute. So was I. Mr. Young asked them a number
of questions, and their answers made my statement good. Then he said to
them:
“‘You signed these contracts and assumed these obligations of your own
free will and accord?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Then carry them out to the letter, if it makes paupers of you! Go!’
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“And they _did_ go, too! They are strung across the deserts now, working
like bees. And I never hear a word out of them.
“There is a batch of governors, and judges, and other officials here,
shipped from Washington, and they maintain the semblance of a republican
form of government—but the petrified truth is that Utah is an absolute
monarchy and Brigham Young is king!”
Mr. Street was a fine man, and I believe his story. I knew him well
during several years afterward in San Francisco.
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we
had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of
polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to
calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
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I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I
was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until
I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my
head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically “homely”
creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I
said, “No—the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian
charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their
harsh censure—and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of
open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand
uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.”
[For a brief sketch of Mormon history, and the noted Mountain Meadow
massacre, see Appendices A and B. ]
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CHAPTER XV.
It is a luscious country for thrilling evening stories about
assassinations of intractable Gentiles. I cannot easily conceive of
anything more cosy than the night in Salt Lake which we spent in a
Gentile den, smoking pipes and listening to tales of how Burton galloped
in among the pleading and defenceless “Morisites” and shot them down,
men and women, like so many dogs. And how Bill Hickman, a Destroying
Angel, shot Drown and Arnold dead for bringing suit against him for a
debt. And how Porter Rockwell did this and that dreadful thing. And how
heedless people often come to Utah and make remarks about Brigham, or
polygamy, or some other sacred matter, and the very next morning at
daylight such parties are sure to be found lying up some back alley,
contentedly waiting for the hearse.
And the next most interesting thing is to sit and listen to these
Gentiles talk about polygamy; and how some portly old frog of an elder,
or a bishop, marries a girl—likes her, marries her sister—likes her,
marries another sister—likes her, takes another—likes her, marries her
mother—likes her, marries her father, grandfather, great grandfather,
and then comes back hungry and asks for more. And how the pert young
thing of eleven will chance to be the favorite wife and her own
venerable grandmother have to rank away down toward D 4 in their mutual
husband’s esteem, and have to sleep in the kitchen, as like as not. And
how this dreadful sort of thing, this hiving together in one foul nest
of mother and daughters, and the making a young daughter superior to her
own mother in rank and authority, are things which Mormon women submit
to because their religion teaches them that the more wives a man has on
earth, and the more children he rears, the higher the place they will
all have in the world to come—and the warmer, maybe, though they do not
seem to say anything about that.
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According to these Gentile friends of ours, Brigham Young’s harem
contains twenty or thirty wives. They said that some of them had grown
old and gone out of active service, but were comfortably housed and
cared for in the henery—or the Lion House, as it is strangely named.
Along with each wife were her children—fifty altogether. The house was
perfectly quiet and orderly, when the children were still. They all took
their meals in one room, and a happy and home-like sight it was
pronounced to be. None of our party got an opportunity to take dinner
with Mr. Young, but a Gentile by the name of Johnson professed to have
enjoyed a sociable breakfast in the Lion House. He gave a preposterous
account of the “calling of the roll,” and other preliminaries, and the
carnage that ensued when the buckwheat cakes came in. But he embellished
rather too much. He said that Mr. Young told him several smart sayings
of certain of his “two-year-olds,” observing with some pride that for
many years he had been the heaviest contributor in that line to one of
the Eastern magazines; and then he wanted to show Mr. Johnson one of the
pets that had said the last good thing, but he could not find the child.
He searched the faces of the children in detail, but could not decide
which one it was. Finally he gave it up with a sigh and said:
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“I thought I would know the little cub again but I don’t.” Mr. Johnson
said further, that Mr. Young observed that life was a sad, sad
thing—“because the joy of every new marriage a man contracted was so apt
to be blighted by the inopportune funeral of a less recent bride.” And
Mr. Johnson said that while he and Mr. Young were pleasantly conversing
in private, one of the Mrs. Youngs came in and demanded a breast-pin,
remarking that she had found out that he had been giving a breast-pin to
No. 6, and _she_, for one, did not propose to let this partiality go on
without making a satisfactory amount of trouble about it. Mr. Young
reminded her that there was a stranger present. Mrs. Young said that if
the state of things inside the house was not agreeable to the stranger,
he could find room outside. Mr. Young promised the breast-pin, and she
went away. But in a minute or two another Mrs. Young came in and
demanded a breast-pin. Mr. Young began a remonstrance, but Mrs. Young
cut him short. She said No. 6 had got one, and No. 11 was promised one,
and it was “no use for him to try to impose on her—she hoped she knew
her rights.” He gave his promise, and she went. And presently three Mrs.
Youngs entered in a body and opened on their husband a tempest of tears,
abuse, and entreaty. They had heard all about No. 6, No. 11, and No. 14.
Three more breast-pins were promised. They were hardly gone when nine
more Mrs. Youngs filed into the presence, and a new tempest burst forth
and raged round about the prophet and his guest. Nine breast-pins were
promised, and the weird sisters filed out again. And in came eleven
more, weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. Eleven promised
breast-pins purchased peace once more.
“That is a specimen,” said Mr. Young. “You see how it is. You see what a
life I lead. A man _can’t_ be wise all the time. In a heedless moment I
gave my darling No. 6—excuse my calling her thus, as her other name has
escaped me for the moment—a breast-pin. It was only worth twenty-five
dollars—that is, _apparently_ that was its _whole_ cost—but its ultimate
cost was inevitably bound to be a good deal more. You yourself have seen
it climb up to six hundred and fifty dollars—and alas, even that is not
the end! For I have wives all over this Territory of Utah. I have dozens
of wives whose _numbers_, even, I do not know without looking in the
family Bible. They are scattered far and wide among the mountains and
valleys of my realm. And mark you, every solitary one of them will hear
of this wretched breast pin, and every last one of them will have one or
die. No. 6’s breast pin will cost me twenty-five hundred dollars before
I see the end of it. And these creatures will compare these pins
together, and if one is a shade finer than the rest, they will all be
thrown on my hands, and I will have to order a new lot to keep peace in
the family. Sir, you probably did not know it, but all the time you were
present with my children your every movement was watched by vigilant
servitors of mine. If you had offered to give a child a dime, or a stick
of candy, or any trifle of the kind, you would have been snatched out of
the house instantly, provided it could be done before your gift left
your hand. Otherwise it would be absolutely necessary for you to make an
exactly similar gift to all my children—and knowing by experience the
importance of the thing, I would have stood by and seen to it myself
that you did it, and did it thoroughly. Once a gentleman gave one of my
children a tin whistle—a veritable invention of Satan, sir, and one
which I have an unspeakable horror of, and so would you if you had
eighty or ninety children in your house. But the deed was done—the man
escaped. I knew what the result was going to be, and I thirsted for
vengeance. I ordered out a flock of Destroying Angels, and they hunted
the man far into the fastnesses of the Nevada mountains. But they never
caught him. I am not cruel, sir—I am not vindictive except when sorely
outraged—but if I had caught him, sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would
have locked him into the nursery till the brats whistled him to death.
By the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt (whom God assoil!) there was
never anything on this earth like it! _I_ knew who gave the whistle to
the child, but I could, not make those jealous mothers believe me. They
believed _I_ did it, and the result was just what any man of reflection
could have foreseen: I had to order a hundred and ten whistles—I think
we had a hundred and ten children in the house then, but some of them
are off at college now—I had to order a hundred and ten of those
shrieking things, and I wish I may never speak another word if we didn’t
have to talk on our fingers entirely, from that time forth until the
children got tired of the whistles. And if ever another man gives a
whistle to a child of mine and I get my hands on him, I will hang him
higher than Haman! That is the word with the bark on it! Shade of Nephi!
_You_ don’t know anything about married life. I am rich, and everybody
knows it. I am benevolent, and everybody takes advantage of it. I have a
strong fatherly instinct and all the foundlings are foisted on me.
“Every time a woman wants to do well by her darling, she puzzles her
brain to cipher out some scheme for getting it into my hands. Why, sir,
a woman came here once with a child of a curious lifeless sort of
complexion (and so had the woman), and swore that the child was mine and
she my wife—that I had married her at such-and-such a time in such-and-
such a place, but she had forgotten her number, and of course I could
not remember her name. Well, sir, she called my attention to the fact
that the child looked like me, and really it did seem to resemble me—a
common thing in the Territory—and, to cut the story short, I put it in
my nursery, and she left.
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“And by the ghost of Orson Hyde, when they came to wash the paint off
that child it was an Injun! Bless my soul, you don’t know anything about
married life. It is a perfect dog’s life, sir—a perfect dog’s life. You
can’t economize. It isn’t possible. I have tried keeping one set of
bridal attire for all occasions. But it is of no use. First you’ll marry
a combination of calico and consumption that’s as thin as a rail, and
next you’ll get a creature that’s nothing more than the dropsy in
disguise, and then you’ve got to eke out that bridal dress with an old
balloon. That is the way it goes. And think of the wash-bill—(excuse
these tears)—nine hundred and eighty-four pieces a week! No, sir, there
is no such a thing as economy in a family like mine. Why, just the one
item of cradles—think of it! And vermifuge! Soothing syrup! Teething
rings! And ‘papa’s watches’ for the babies to play with! And things to
scratch the furniture with! And lucifer matches for them to eat, and
pieces of glass to cut themselves with! The item of glass alone would
support _your_ family, I venture to say, sir. Let me scrimp and squeeze
all I can, I still can’t get ahead as fast as I feel I ought to, with my
opportunities. Bless you, sir, at a time when I had seventy-two wives in
this house, I groaned under the pressure of keeping thousands of dollars
tied up in seventy-two bedsteads when the money ought to have been out
at interest; and I just sold out the whole stock, sir, at a sacrifice,
and built a bedstead seven feet long and ninety-six feet wide.”
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“But it was a failure, sir. I could _not_ sleep. It appeared to me that
the whole seventy-two women snored at once. The roar was deafening. And
then the danger of it! That was what I was looking at. They would all
draw in their breath at once, and you could actually see the walls of
the house suck in—and then they would all exhale their breath at once,
and you could see the walls swell out, and strain, and hear the rafters
crack, and the shingles grind together. My friend, take an old man’s
advice, and _don’t_ encumber yourself with a large family—mind, I tell
you, don’t do it. In a small family, and in a small family only, you
will find that comfort and that peace of mind which are the best at last
of the blessings this world is able to afford us, and for the lack of
which no accumulation of wealth, and no acquisition of fame, power, and
greatness can ever compensate us. Take my word for it, ten or eleven
wives is all you need—never go over it.”
Some instinct or other made me set this Johnson down as being
unreliable. And yet he was a very entertaining person, and I doubt if
some of the information he gave us could have been acquired from any
other source. He was a pleasant contrast to those reticent Mormons.
CHAPTER XVI.
All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have
seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a
copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a
pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess
of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this
book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any
rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain
ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he
found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of
translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with
the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the
New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the
quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s
translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern
glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward
and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast.
Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every
sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding
sore,” “and it came to pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again.
“And it came to pass” was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible
would have been only a pamphlet.
The title-page reads as follows:
THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON
PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI.
Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and
also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of
the House of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of
commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation.
Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be
destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the
interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto
the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the
interpretation thereof by the gift of God. An abridgment taken from the
Book of Ether also; which is a record of the people of Jared; who were
scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people
when they were building a tower to get to Heaven.
“Hid up” is good. And so is “wherefore”—though why “wherefore”? Any
other word would have answered as well—though—in truth it would not have
sounded so Scriptural.
Next comes:
THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES. Be it known unto all nations,
kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we,
through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have
seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the
people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of
the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken;
and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of
God, for His voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a
surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the
engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us
by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of
soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought
and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the
engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the
Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that
these things are true; and it is marvellous in our eyes; nevertheless
the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it;
wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear
testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in
Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found
spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with Him
eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY,
DAVID WHITMER, MARTIN HARRIS.
Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come
anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a
man tells me that he has “seen the engravings which are upon the
plates,” and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw
him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the
road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or
not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality
either.
Next is this:
AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES. Be it known unto all nations,
kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that
Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the
plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and
as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did handle
with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has
the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we
bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto
us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said
Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names
unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and
we lie not, God bearing witness of it. CHRISTIAN WHITMER, JACOB WHITMER,
PETER WHITMER, JR., JOHN WHITMER, HIRAM PAGE, JOSEPH SMITH, SR., HYRUM
SMITH, SAMUEL H. SMITH.
And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they
grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen
the plates too; and not only seen those plates but “hefted” them, I am
convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire
Whitmer family had testified.
The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen “books”—being the books of Jacob,
Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two
“books” of Mormon, and three of Nephi.
In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Testament, which
gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem of the “children of Lehi”;
and it goes on to tell of their wanderings in the wilderness, during
eight years, and their supernatural protection by one of their number, a
party by the name of Nephi. They finally reached the land of
“Bountiful,” and camped by the sea. After they had remained there “for
the space of many days”—which is more Scriptural than definite—Nephi was
commanded from on high to build a ship wherein to “carry the people
across the waters.” He travestied Noah’s ark—but he obeyed orders in the
matter of the plan. He finished the ship _in a single day_, while his
brethren stood by and made fun of it—and of him, too—“saying, our
brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship.” They did
not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe or nation sailed
the next day. Then a bit of genuine nature cropped out, and is revealed
by outspoken Nephi with Scriptural frankness—they all got on a spree!
They, “and also their wives, began to make themselves merry, insomuch
that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness;
yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness.”
Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings; but they tied him neck
and heels, and went on with their lark. But observe how Nephi the
prophet circumvented them by the aid of the invisible powers:
And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch that I could
not move, the compass, which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to
work; wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship,
insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible
tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three
days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be
drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the
fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be
exceeding sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed
up in the depths of the sea.
Then they untied him.
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And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the
compass, and it did work whither I desired it. And it came to pass that
I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed, the winds did cease, and
the storm did cease, and there was a great calm.
Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have had the
advantage of Noah.
Their voyage was toward a “promised land”—the only name they give it.
They reached it in safety.
Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and was added by
Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s death. Before that, it was regarded
as an “abomination.” This verse from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter
II. of the book of Jacob:
For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity;
they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to excuse themselves
in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written
concerning David, and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly
had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me,
saith the Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people
forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I
might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of
Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord God, will no suffer that this people shall
do like unto them of old.
However, the project failed—or at least the modern Mormon end of it—for
Brigham “suffers” it. This verse is from the same chapter:
Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their
filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more
righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the
Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should
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