Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail Part 22

The railroad bridge at Omaha, crossing the Missouri where in 1853 we went over by ferry.]

Then came the compensatory thought of what had been accomplished. Four states had responded cordially. Back along the line of more than fifteen hundred miles already stood many sentinels, mostly granite, to mark the trail and keep alive the memory of the pioneers. Moreover, I recalled the enthusiastic reception in so many places, the outpouring of contributions from thousands of school children, the willing hands of the people that built these monuments, and the more than twenty thousand people attending the dedication ceremonies. These heartening recollections made me forget the loss of Twist, the recalcitrant cow, and the dilemma that confronted me. I awakened from my reverie in a more cheerful mood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown Bros._

Sugar-beet factories were seen when we left behind us the open ranges of the Wyoming country and came into the sugar-beet section in Nebraska.]

"Do the best you can," I said to myself, "and don't be cast down." My spirits rose almost to the point of exultation again.

We soon reached the beautiful city of Kearney, named after old Fort Kearney, which stood across the river, and were given a fine camping place in the center of the town. It was under the shade trees that line the streets, and we had a fresh-cut greensward upon which to pitch our tents. People came in great numbers to visit the camp and express their appreciation of our enterprise. Later a monument was erected in this city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown Bros._

In the corn lands of Nebraska.]

At Grand Island I found public sentiment in favor of taking action. It was decided, however, that the best time for the dedication would be in the following year, upon the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the settlement. I was a little disappointed in the delay, but felt that good seed was sown.

Grand Island, with its stately rows of shade trees, its modest, tasteful homes, the bustle and stir on its business streets, with the constant pa.s.sing of trains, shrieking of whistles, and ringing of bells, presented a striking contrast to the scene I saw that June day in 1852 when I pa.s.sed over the ground near where the city stands. Vast herds of buffalo then grazed on the hills or leisurely crossed our track and at times obstructed our way, and herds of antelope watched from vantage points.

But now the buffalo and antelope have disappeared; the Indian likewise is gone. Instead of the parched plain of 1852, with its fierce clouds of dust rolling up the valley and engulfing whole trains, we saw a landscape of smiling, fruitful fields, inviting groves of trees, and contented homes.

From Grand Island I went to Fremont, Nebraska, to head the procession in the semi-centennial celebration in honor of the founding of that city.

In the procession I worked the ox and cow together. From Fremont I went on to Lincoln.

All the while I was searching for an ox or a steer large enough to mate the Dave ox, but without avail. Finally, after looking over a thousand head of cattle in the stockyards of Omaha, I found a five-year-old steer, Dandy, which I broke in on the way to Indianapolis. This ox proved to be very satisfactory. He never kicked or hooked, and was always in good humor. Dave and Dandy made good team-mates.

"As dumb as an ox" is a very common expression, dating back as far as my memory goes. In fact, the ox is not so "dumb" as a casual observer might think. Dave and Dandy knew me as far as they could see; sometimes when I went to them in the morning, Dave would lift his head, bow his neck, stretch out his body, and perhaps extend a foot, as if to say, "Good morning to you; glad to see you." Dandy was driven on the streets of a hundred cities and towns, and I never knew him to be at a loss to find his way to the stable or watering-trough, once he had been there and was started on a return trip.

I arrived at Indianapolis on January 5, 1907, eleven months and seven days from the date of departure from my home at Puyallup, twenty-six hundred miles away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown Bros._

Along the Erie Ca.n.a.l, part of the National Highway to the West.]

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DRIVING ON TO THE CAPITAL

AFTER pa.s.sing the Missouri, and leaving the trail behind me, I somehow had a foreboding that I might be mistaken for a faker and looked upon as an adventurer, and I shrank from the ordeal. My hair had grown long on the trip across; my boots were somewhat the worse for wear, and my old-fas.h.i.+oned clothes (understood well enough by pioneers along the trail) were dilapidated. I was not the most presentable specimen for every sort of company. Already I had been compelled to say that I was not a "corn doctor" or any kind of doctor; that I did not have patent medicine to sell; and that I was not soliciting contributions to support the expedition.

The first of March, 1907, found me on the road going eastward from Indianapolis. I had made up my mind that Was.h.i.+ngton should be the objective point. For my main purpose--to secure the building of a memorial highway--Congress, I felt, would be a better field to work in than out on the hopelessly long stretch of the trail, where one man's span of life would certainly pa.s.s before the work could be accomplished.

But I thought it well to make a campaign of education to get the work before the general public so that Congress might know about it.

Therefore a route was laid out to occupy the time until the first of December, just before Congress would again a.s.semble. The route lay through Indianapolis, Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus, Buffalo, Albany, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, to Was.h.i.+ngton.

For the most part I received a warm welcome all along the route. Dayton treated me generously. Mayor Badger of Columbus wrote giving me the freedom of the city; and Mayor Tom Johnson wrote to his chief of police to "treat Mr. Meeker as the guest of the city of Cleveland," which was done.

At Buffalo, a benefit performance for one of the hospitals, in the shape of a circus, was in preparation. A part of the elaborate program was an attack by Indians on an emigrant train, the "Indians" being representative young men of the city. At this juncture I arrived in the city, and was besought to go and represent the train, for which they would pay me.

"No, not for pay," I said, "but I will go."

So there was quite a realistic show in the ring that afternoon and evening, and the hospital received more than a thousand dollars'

benefit.

Near Oneida some one said that I had better take to the towpath on the ca.n.a.l to save distance and to avoid going over the hill. It was against the law, he added, but everybody did it and no one would object. So, when we came to the forks of the road, I followed the best-beaten track and was soon traveling along on the level, hard, but narrow way, the towpath. All went well that day.

We were not so fortunate the next day, however, when a boat with three men, two women, and three long-eared mules was squarely met, the mules being on the towpath. The mules took fright, got into a regular mixup, broke the harness, and went up the towpath at a two-forty gait.

As I had walked into Oneida the night before, I did not see the sight or hear the war of words that followed. The men ordered Marden to "take that outfit off the towpath." His answer was that he could not do it without upsetting the wagon. The men said if he couldn't they would do it quick enough. They started toward the wagon, evidently intent upon executing their threat, meanwhile swearing at the top of their voices while the women scolded in chorus, one of them fairly shrieking.

My old muzzle-loading rifle that we had carried across the Plains lay handy. When the men started toward him, Marden picked up the rifle to show fight and called on the dog Jim to take hold of the men. As he raised the gun to use it as a club, one of the boatmen threw up his hands, bawling at the top of his voice, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" He forgot to mix in oaths and slunk out of sight behind the wagon. The others also drew back. Jim showed his teeth, and a truce followed. With but little inconvenience the mules were taken off the path, and the ox team was driven past.

The fun of it was that the gun that had spread such consternation hadn't been loaded for more than twenty-five years. The sight of it alone was enough for the three stalwart braves of the ca.n.a.l.

It took New York to cap the climax--to bring me all sorts of experiences, sometimes with the police, sometimes with the gaping crowds, and sometimes at the City Hall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown Bros._

In the great automobile factory near Cleveland, Ohio, the old prairie schooner came into vivid contrast with the new means of following the trail.]

Mayor McClellan was not in the city when I arrived; but the acting mayor said that while he could not grant me a permit to come in, he would have the police commissioner instruct his men not to molest me. Either the instructions were not general enough, or else the men paid no attention; for when I got down as far as 161st Street on Amsterdam Avenue, a policeman interfered and ordered my driver to take the team to the police station, which he very properly refused to do.

It was after dark and I had just gone around the corner to engage quarters for the night when this occurred. Returning, I saw the young policeman attempt to move the team, but as he didn't know how, they wouldn't budge a peg, whereupon he arrested my driver and took him away.

Another policeman tried to coax me to drive the team down to the police station. I said, "No, sir, I will not." He couldn't drive the team to the station, and I wouldn't, and so there we were. To arrest me would make matters worse, for the team would be left on the street without any one to care for it. Finally the officer got out of the way, and I drove the team to the stable. He followed, with a large crowd tagging after him. Soon the captain of the precinct arrived, called his man off, and ordered my driver released.

It appeared that there was an ordinance against allowing cattle to be driven on the streets of New York. Of course, this was intended to apply to loose cattle, but the policemen interpreted it to mean any cattle, and they had the clubs to enforce their interpretation. I was in the city and couldn't get out without subjecting myself to arrest, according to their view of the law; and in fact I didn't want to get out. I wanted to drive down Broadway from one end to the other, and I did, a month later.

All hands said nothing short of an ordinance by the board of aldermen would clear the way; so I tackled the aldermen. The _New York Tribune_ sent a man over to the City Hall to intercede for me; the _New York Herald_ did the same thing. And so it came about that the aldermen pa.s.sed an ordinance granting me the right of way for thirty days, and also endorsed my work. I thought my trouble was over when that ordinance was pa.s.sed. Not so; the mayor was absent, and the acting mayor could not sign an ordinance until after ten days had elapsed. The city attorney came in and said the aldermen had exceeded their authority, as they could not legally grant a special privilege.

Then the acting mayor said he would not sign the ordinance; but if I would wait until the next meeting of the aldermen, if they did not rescind the ordinance, it would be certified, as he would not veto it.

Considering that no one was likely to test the legality of the ordinance, he thought I would be safe in acting as though it were legal. Just thirty days from the time I had the bother with the policemen, and having incurred two hundred and fifty dollars of extra expense, I drove down Broadway from 161st Street to the Battery, without getting into any serious sc.r.a.pe, except with one automobilist who became angered, but afterwards was "as good as pie."

Thirty days satisfied me with New York. The crowds were so great that congestion of traffic always followed my presence, and I would be compelled to move. One day when I went to City Hall Park to have my team photographed with the Greeley statue, I got away only by the help of the police, and even then with great difficulty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In Wall Street, New York City.]

A trip across Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn was also made, and then, two days before leaving the city, I came near to meeting a heavy loss.

Somehow I got sandwiched in on the East Side of New York in the congested district of the foreign quarter and at nightfall drove into a stable, put the oxen in the stalls and, as usual, the dog Jim in the wagon. The next morning Jim was gone. The stableman said he had left the wagon a few moments after I had and had been stolen. The police accused the stablemen of being parties to the theft, in which I think they were right.

Money could not buy that dog. He was an integral part of the expedition: always on the alert; always watchful of the wagon during my absence, and always willing to mind what I bade him do. He had had more adventures on this trip than any other member of the outfit. First he was tossed over a high brush by the ox Dave; then, shortly after, he was pitched headlong over a barbed wire fence by an irate cow. Next came a fight with a wolf; following this, came a narrow escape from a rattlesnake in the road. Also, a trolley car ran on to him, rolling him over and over again until he came out as dizzy as a drunken man. I thought he was a "goner" that time for sure, but he soon straightened up. Finally, in the streets of Kansas City, he was run over by a heavy truck while fighting with another dog. The other dog was killed outright, while Jim came near to having his neck broken. He lost one of his best fighting teeth and had several others broken. I sent him to a veterinary surgeon, and curiously enough he made no protest while having the broken teeth repaired or extracted.