Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: On this page and the following are shown the main trails that stretched across the continent, west of the Missouri, in the years before the building of railroads. The Oregon Trail from Kanesville to Portland is marked with the heaviest line. The lighter line from Huntsville to Kanesville shows Ezra Meeker's early travels; this marks not a trail but a main-traveled road. People starting out from St. Louis for the Oregon Country went by way of the Santa Fe Trail about as far as Fort Leavenworth, then northwest to Fort Kearney on the Platte River, where they joined the trail from Kanesville. The Santa Fe Trail was the earliest trail to be made; trading expeditions had gone from St. Louis to Santa Fe since the early 1800's. The California Trail and the Oregon Trail are the same as far as the big bend of the Bear River, at which point the California Trail goes off to the southwest.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We drivers had little time for looking and for making comparisons. All our attention had to be given to our teams, for as we neared the landing we found the roads terribly cut up on account of the concentrated travel.

It was indeed a sight long to be remembered. The "white flatiron" proved to be wagons with their tongues pointing to the landing. A center train with other parallel trains extended back in the rear, gradually covering a wider range the farther back from the river it went. Several hundred wagons were thus closely interlocked, completely blocking the approach to the landing.

All about were camps of every kind, some without any covering at all, others with comfortable tents. Nearly everybody appeared to be intent on merrymaking, and the fiddlers and dancers were busy; but here and there were small groups engaged in devotional services. These camps contained the outfits, in great part, of the wagons in line; some of them had been there for two weeks with still no prospect of securing an early crossing. Two scows only were engaged in crossing the wagons and teams.

The muddy waters of the Missouri had already swallowed up two victims.

On the first day we were there, I saw a third victim go under the drift of a small island within sight of his shrieking wife. The stock had rushed to one side of the boat, submerging the gunwale, and had precipitated the whole load into the dangerous river. One yoke of oxen that had reached the farther sh.o.r.e deliberately reentered the river with a heavy yoke on, and swam to the Iowa side; there they were finally saved by the helping hands of the a.s.sembled emigrants.

"What shall we do?" was the question pa.s.sed around in our party, without answer. Tom McAuley was not yet looked upon as a leader, as was the case later.

"Build a boat," said his sister Margaret, a most determined maiden lady, the oldest of the party and as resolute and brave as the bravest.

But of what should we build it? While a search for material was being made, one of our party, who had got across the river in search of timber, discovered a scow, almost completely buried, on the sandpit opposite the landing. The report seemed too good to be true.

The next thing to do was to find the owner. We discovered him eleven miles down the river.

"Yes, if you will agree to deliver the boat safely to me after crossing your five wagons and teams, you may have it," said he.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Digging out the scow.]

The bargain was closed then and there. My, but that night didn't we make the sand fly from the boat! By morning we could begin to see the end of the job. Then, while busy hands began to cut a landing on the perpendicular sandy bank of the Iowa side, others were preparing sweeps.

All was bustle and stir.

Meanwhile it had become noised around that another boat would be put on to ferry people over, and we were besieged with applications from detained emigrants. Finally, the word coming to the ears of the ferrymen, they were foolish enough to undertake to prevent us from crossing without their help. A writ of replevin or some other process was issued,--I never knew exactly what,--directing the sheriff to take possession of the boat when it landed. This he attempted to do.

I never before or since attempted to resist an officer of the law; but when that sheriff put in an appearance and we realized what his coming meant, there wasn't a man in our party that did not run to the nearby camp for his gun. It is needless to add that we did not need to use the guns. As if by magic a hundred other guns came in sight. The sheriff withdrew, and the crossing went on peaceably till all our wagons were safely landed.

We had still another danger to face. We learned that an attempt would be made to take the boat from us, the action being not against us, but against the owner. Thanks to the adroit management of McAuley and my brother Oliver, we were able to fulfill our engagement to deliver the boat safely to the owner.

We were now across the river, and it might almost be said that we had left the United States. When we set foot upon the right bank of the Missouri River we were outside the pale of law. We were within the Indian country, where no organized civil government existed.

Some people and some writers have a.s.sumed that on the Plains each man was "a law unto himself" and free to do his own will,--dependent, of course, upon his physical ability to enforce it. Nothing could be farther from the facts than this a.s.sumption, as evil-doers soon found out to their discomfort.

It is true that no general organization for law and order was effected on the western side of the river. But the American instinct for fair play and a hearing for everybody prevailed, so that while there was no mob law, the law of self-preservation a.s.serted itself, and the counsels of the level-headed older men prevailed. When an occasion called for action, a "high court" was convened, and woe betide the man that would undertake to defy its mandates after its deliberations were made public!

An incident that occurred in what is now Wyoming, well up on the Sweet.w.a.ter River, will ill.u.s.trate the spirit of determination of the st.u.r.dy men of the Plains. A murder had been committed, and it was clear that the motive was robbery. The suspected man and his family were traveling along with the moving column. Men who had volunteered to search for the missing man finally found evidence proving the guilt of the person suspected. A council of twelve men was called, and it deliberated until the second day, meanwhile holding the murderer safely.

What were they to do? Here were a wife and four little children depending upon this man for their lives. What would become of his family if justice was meted out to him? Soon there developed an undercurrent of opinion that it was probably better to waive punishment than to endanger the lives of the family; but the council would not be swerved from its resolution. At sundown of the third day the criminal was hanged in the presence of the whole camp. This was not done until ample provision had been made to insure the safety of the family by providing a driver to finish the journey. I came so near to seeing the hanging that I did see the ends of the wagon tongues in the air and the rope dangling therefrom.

From necessity, murder was punishable with death. The penalty for stealing was whipping, which, when inflicted by one of those long ox lashes in the hands of an expert, would bring the blood from the victim's back at every stroke. Minor offenses, or differences generally, were arbitrated. Each party would abide by the decision as if it had come from a court of law. Lawlessness was not common on the Plains. It was less common, indeed, than in the communities from which the great body of the emigrants had been drawn, for punishment was swift and certain.

The greater body of the emigrants formed themselves into large companies and elected captains. These combinations soon began to dissolve and re-form, only to dissolve again, with a steady accompaniment of contentions. I would not enter into any organized company, but neither could I travel alone. By tacit agreement our party and the McAuleys travelled together, the outfit consisting of four wagons and thirteen persons--nine men, three women, and the baby. Yet although we kept apart as a separate unit, we were all the while in one great train, never out of sight and hearing of others. In fact, at times the road would be so full of wagons that all could not travel in one track, and this fact accounts for the double roadbeds seen in so many places on the trail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Giving chase to the buffaloes.]

CHAPTER FIVE

THE WESTWARD RUSH

WE crossed the Missouri on the seventeenth and eighteenth of May. The next day we made a short drive, and camped within hearing of the shrill steamboat whistle that resounded far over the prairie.

The whistle announced the arrival of a steamer. This meant that a dozen or more wagons could be carried across the river at a time, and that a dozen or more trips could be made during the day, with as many more at night. Very soon we were overtaken by this throng of wagons. They gave us some troubles, and much discomfort.

The rush for the West was then at its height. The plan of action was to push ahead and make as big a day's drive as possible; hence it is not to be wondered at that nearly all the thousand wagons that crossed the river after we did soon pa.s.sed us.

"Now, fellers, jist let 'em rush on. If we keep cool, we'll overcatch 'em afore long," said McAuley.

And we did. We pa.s.sed many a team, broken down as a result of those first few days of rush. People often brought these and other ills upon themselves by their own indiscretion.

The traveling had not progressed far until there came a general outcry against the heavy loads and unnecessary articles. Soon we began to see abandoned property. First it might be a table or a cupboard, or perhaps a bedstead or a cast-iron cookstove. Then feather beds, blankets, quilts, and pillows were seen. Very soon, here and there would be an abandoned wagon; then provisions, stacks of flour and bacon being the most abundant--all left as common property.

It was a case of help yourself if you would; no one would interfere. In some places such a sign was posted,--"Help yourself." Hundreds of wagons were left and hundreds of tons of goods. People seemed to vie with each other in giving away their property. There was no chance to sell, and they disliked to destroy their goods.

Long after the end of the mania for getting rid of goods to lighten loads, the abandonment of wagons continued, as the teams became weaker and the ravages of cholera among the emigrants began to tell. It was then that many lost their heads and ruined their teams by furious driving, by lack of care, and by abuse. There came a veritable stampede--a strife for possession of the road, to see who should get ahead. It was against the rule to attempt to pa.s.s a team ahead; a wagon that had withdrawn from the line and stopped beside the trail could get into the line again, but on the march it could not cut ahead of the wagon in front of it. Yet now whole trains would strive, often with bad blood, for the mastery of the trail, one attempting to pa.s.s the other.

Frequently there were drivers on both sides of the team to urge the poor, suffering brutes forward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _United States Geological Survey_

The Platte River. Along this old stream the Oregon Trail wound its way for nearly five hundred miles.]

We were on the trail along the north side of the Platte River. The cholera epidemic struck our moving column where the throng from the south side of the Platte began crossing. This, as I recollect, was near where the city of Kearney now stands, about two hundred miles west of the Missouri River.

"What shall we do?" pa.s.sed from one to another in our little family council.

"Now, fellers," said McAuley, "don't lose your heads, but do jist as you've been doing. You gals, jist make your bread as light as ever, and we'll take river water the same as ever, even if it is most as thick as mud, and boil it."

We had all along refused to dig little wells near the banks of the Platte, as many others did; for we had soon learned that the water obtained was strongly charged with alkali, while the river water was comparatively pure, except for the sediment, so fine as seemingly to be held in solution.

"Keep cool," McAuley continued. "Maybe we'll have to lay down, and maybe not. Anyway, it's no use frettin'. What's to be will be, 'specially if we but help things along."

This homely yet wise counsel fell upon willing ears, as most of us were already of the same mind. We did just as we had been doing, and all but one of our party escaped unharmed.

We had then been in the buffalo country for several days. Some of the young men, keen for hunting, had made themselves sick by getting overheated and drinking impure water. Such was the experience of my brother Oliver. Being of an adventurous spirit, he could not restrain his ardor, gave chase to the buffaloes, and fell sick almost to death.

This occurred just at the time when we encountered the cholera panic. It must be the cholera that had taken hold of him, his companions argued.

Some of his party could not delay.