Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 Part 5

Later their oxen drank of the alkali water of the Humboldt River, and three of the four died in one night. Then the cow was yoked with the remaining ox, two steers were loaned them by "good Samaritans" in our company, and they were with us to the Sink of the Humboldt.

Meantime the milk supply grew less, and Mrs. Darby was compelled to subst.i.tute water for milk in the gravy. This sop was not satisfactory to Danny. One evening at meal time he was overheard by some of our boys, saying, "I want milk in my gravy." Though reminded there was only enough milk for the baby, he of the phenomenal appet.i.te reiterated, "I don't care, I want milk in my gravy." Thereafter "Gravy" was the name by which he was known, so long as he traveled with us.

This narrative would not do justice to the variety of individuals and events without mention of another singular personage, a young fellow who was "working his pa.s.sage"; a sort of disconnected unit, whose place became everywhere in the train, and who belonged to n.o.body. How he got smuggled into the company no one has since been able to recall. He was a sort of desert stowaway; tolerated because, though eccentric and quite alarming in appearance, he was always in good humor, and often useful, having a willingness to do as many of the ch.o.r.es as others would trust him to perform. He was notable as a physical curiosity, though not actually deformed. Low of stature, he came to be known as "Shorty," the only name we ever had for him. As he stood, his abnormally long arms enabled him to take his hat from the ground without stooping. His legs were not mates in length, causing him as he moved, with a quick, rocking gait, to create the impression that he might topple backward; but somehow the longer leg always got underneath at the critical instant, and restored the balance. His head was large, and perfectly round; hair porcupinesque, each bristle standing nearly perpendicular to the plane on which it grew. He had no neck. Mouth small, and so round that it opened not unlike a bored hole in a flesh-colored pumpkin.

"Shorty" a.s.serted that he was a singer. He and "Jack" never sang together, however--that is, they never did so any more, after trying it once. "Shorty" and "Gravy" Worley became chums inseparable, except on one occasion, when their friends.h.i.+p was temporarily ruptured by a dispute over the owners.h.i.+p of a fis.h.i.+ng hook. Anger grew hot, but when they were about to come to blows, "Shorty" suddenly dropped on "all-fours" and essayed to b.u.t.t his adversary with his head, which surprising mode of combat so disconcerted "Gravy" that he ran for his quarters, wildly yelling, "Take him off, take him off."

For a time during the early part of the journey the horses and mules were picketed at night, on the best pasture available; and before we retired, all the animals were brought near the wagons, the loose cattle bunched with them, and guards were placed, to prevent straying of the stock or surprise by Indians. Later, for awhile, these precautions were deemed unnecessary, though still later they had to be resumed. The stock became accustomed to the daily routine, and after the all-day travel, were quite willing, when they had finished their evening grazing, to a.s.semble near the camp and lie down for the night, usually remaining comparatively quiet till morning. As if having some realization of the lonely nature of the surroundings, the animals were not disposed to stray off, except on rare occasions; but rather to keep within sight of the people and the wagons.

There was proof of the theory that in some circ.u.mstances domestic animals acquire some of that feeling that human creatures know, when far from the habitations of man. There is a peculiar sensation in the great and boundless contiguity of empty silence which works the senses up to a feeling that is somewhat alike in man and beast--that there is most comfort and protection near the center of the settlement or camp.

In this stillness of the night--and night on these plains was often very still--any slight noise outside the camp startled and thrilled the taut nerves. Not only was the night still; usually it was silent, too.

But occasionally, when the silence was absolute, a couple or more of prairie-wolves lurking in the vicinity, without the faintest note of prelude, would startle the calm of night with their peculiar commingling of barks, howls and wails,--a racket all their own. It was the habit of these night prowlers of the desert to come as near to the camp as their acute sense of safety permitted, and there, sitting on their haunches, their noses pointed to the moon, render a serenade that was truly thrilling. Two prairie-wolves, in a fugued duet, can emit more disquieting noise, with a less proportion of harmony, than any aggregation of several times their equal in numbers, not excepting Indians on the war-path or a "gutter" band.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A coyote serenade]

That awe of the wilderness to which reference has been made, and its effect on the nerves, may explain the stampede of cattle, often not otherwise accounted for; which occurs sometimes in these hollow solitudes. It occurs nowhere else that I have known.

Several times we experienced this strange exhibition of sudden panic; the snapping, as it were, of the nerves, from undue tension, when, instantly, from cause then to us unknown and unguessed, the whole band of cattle, teams as well as loose stock, made a sudden, wild, furious dash, in a compact ma.s.s; seeming instinctively to follow in whatever direction the leader's impulse led him; drifting together and forward as naturally as water flows to the current; with heads and tails high in air; blindly trampling to the earth whatever chanced to be in their path.

These were not in any sense wild stock. The cattle, horses and mules were all animals that had been raised on the quiet farms of the Middle West, well domesticated.

In the light of certain modern theories it might be said by some that these otherwise docile animals stampeded on the unpeopled plains because they heard the "call of the wild." There were, however, occasions when the cause could be readily a.s.signed for this temporary casting off of restraint.

In one instance, already mentioned, a sudden, pelting hailstorm was the undoubted cause; when, taking the stampede temper, they ran five or six miles before the man, mounted on one of our fleetest saddle-horses, got in front of the foremost of them and checked their running.

On all such occasions control could be regained in only one way.

Speeding his horse till he overtook and pa.s.sed the leader of the drove the rider made his horse the leader; and as each loose animal always followed whatever was in front, the horseman, by making a circuit and gradually slackening the pace, led the drove around and back to place in the line of travel.

Naturally one source of uneasiness was the thought of what our situation would be if, on one of these occasions, we should fail to regain control of these animals, so necessary to us in continuing the westward journey. A stampede when some of the oxen were yoked to the wagons was, of course, more serious in its immediate consequences than when it happened while all were detached from the equipment.

A stampede occurred one day in a level stretch of country, open in every direction; nothing in sight to cause alarm. There the emigrant road showed plainly before us. The wagons were in open single file, the loose stock drawn out in line at the rear. Men on horseback, hats over their eyes, some of them with one leg curled over the pommel of the saddle; lazily droning away the slow hours and the humdrum miles.

The women and children were stowed away on bundles of baggage and camp stuff in the wagons, some of them asleep perhaps, rocked in their "schooner" cradles. A few of the men and boys perchance were strolling off the way, in the hope of starting a sage grouse or rabbit from some sheltering clump of brush. During a specially quiet routine like this; the cattle lolling behind the wagons, mostly unattended, keeping the snail pace set by the patient teams; a steer now and again turning aside to appropriate a tuft of bunch-gra.s.s; their white horns rising and falling in the brilliant sunlight, with the swaying motion of their bodies as they walked, s.h.i.+mmered like waves of a lake at noonday before a gentle breeze: quickly as a clap of the hands, every loose beast in the band, in the wildest fas.h.i.+on of terror, started, straight in the course of the moving line--pell-mell, they went, veering for nothing that they could run over; sweeping on, with a roaring tramp, like m.u.f.fled thunder, they pa.s.sed along both sides of the train. The teams, catching the frenzy, took up the race, as best they could with their heavy impedimenta; all beyond control of their drivers or the herders, who, startled from the reverie of the moment, could do no better than dodge to such place of safety as they found, and stand aghast at the spectacle. Fortunately the draft oxen usually were forced to stop running before they went far, owing to the weight of the wagons they hauled and their inability to break the yokes.

In this particular instance the most serious casualty was the death of a boy, about eight years of age, the son of Dr. Kidd. The child was probably asleep in a wagon, and being aroused by the unusual commotion, may have attempted to look out, when a jolt of the wagon threw him to the ground, and he was trampled to death. The body was kept in camp overnight, and the next morning wrapped in a sheet and buried by the roadside.

This was in a vast stretch of lonely plain. As we journeyed through it, viewing the trackless hills and rockribbed mountains not far away on either side, mostly barren and uninviting, it was difficult to conceive of that territory ever becoming the permanent homes of men.

Yet it is possible, and probable, that the grave of Dr. Kidd's little boy is today within the limits of a populous community, or even beneath a noisy thoroughfare of some busy town.

CHAPTER VIII.

DISASTER OVERTAKES THE WOOD FAMILY.

Our consolidated train continued its creeping pace down the meandering Humboldt; crossing the stream occasionally, to gain the advantage of a shorter or better road.

Soon again there were other proofs of the wisdom we had shown in taking every possible precaution against attack.

Next ahead of us was a family from England, a Mr. Wood, his wife and one child, with two men employed as drivers. They were outfitted with three vehicles, two of them drawn by ox teams, in charge of the hired men, and a lighter, spring-wagon, drawn by four mules, the family conveyance, driven by Mr. Wood. We had not known them before.

One very hot day in the latter part of August, after having moved along for a time with no train in sight ahead of us, we came upon Mr.

Wood in a most pitiable plight, the result of an attack and slaughter, not differing greatly from the Holloway case, and its parallel in atrocity.

Mr. Wood's party had spent the preceding night undisturbed, and were up early in the morning, preparing to resume their journey. The ox teams had been made ready and moved on, while Mr. Wood proceeded in a leisurely way with harnessing the four mules and attaching them to the smaller wagon. All the articles of their equipment had been gathered up and placed in proper order in the wagon.

When Mr. Wood had nearly completed hitching the team, Mrs. Wood and the baby being already in the wagon, some men, apparently all Indians, twenty or more of them, were seen coming on horseback, galloping rapidly from the hills to the northward, about half a mile away.

Mr. Wood, fearing that he and his family were about to be attacked, in this lonely situation, hurriedly sprang to the wagon seat and whipped up the mules, hoping that before the attack they could come within sight of the ox wagons, which had rounded the point of a hill but a few minutes before, and have such aid as his hired men could give.

He had no more than got the team under way when a wheel came off the wagon--he having probably overlooked replacing the nut after oiling the axle. Notwithstanding this he lost no time in making the best of the circ.u.mstances. Jumping to the ground, he hurriedly placed Mrs.

Wood on one of the mules, cutting the harness to release the animal from the wagon; then, with the baby in his arms, he mounted another mule, and they started flight.

But the Indians had by this time come within gun-shot range and fired upon them. Mrs. Wood fell from the mule, fatally shot. Mr. Wood's mule was shot under him, and dropped; next Mr. Wood received a bullet in the right arm, that opened the flesh from wrist to elbow. That or another shot killed the child. Amidst a shower of bullets, Mr. Wood ran in the direction taken by his ox wagons. Getting past the point of the low hill that lay just before him without being struck again, he was then beyond range of the firing, and soon overtook his wagons. His men, with all the guns they had, returned, to find the woman and child dead on the ground. One of the mules was dead, one wounded, the other two gone. The wagon had been ransacked of its contents, and the band of a.s.sa.s.sins were making their way back into the hills whence they had come.

This small wagon, Mr. Wood said, had contained the family effects; and among them were several articles of considerable value, all of which had been taken. Among his property were pieces of English gold coin, the equivalent of fifteen hundred dollars. It had been concealed in the bottom of the wagon-box, and he had supposed the band would overlook it; but that, too, was gone.

Such was the plight in which our company found the man, soon after this tragedy was so swiftly enacted, and which so effectually bereft him of all, his family and his property, leaving him wounded, and dependent on the mercy of strangers.

The dead were placed in mummy-form wrappings and buried, mother and child in one, unmarked grave.

When the ma.n.u.script of this narrative was first made ready for the printer, the description of the calamity which befell Mr. Wood and his family ended here. There were other details, as clearly recalled as those already recited, but so atrocious and devoid of motive, that it was a matter of grave doubt whether the facts should be given. It seemed too deplorable that such an occurrence could be recorded as the act of human beings; furthermore, would it be credible? It has been intimated that the present endeavor is to give a complete history of events as they occurred: no material item suppressed, nothing imaginary included; therefore the remaining details are given.

Incredible as it may sound to civilized ears, after the bodies of Mrs.

Wood and her child had been interred, hardly had those who performed this service gone from the spot when a part of the savage band that had murdered those innocent victims, rushed wildly back to the place, disinterred the bodies from the shallow grave, taking the sheets in which the bodies had been wrapped, and which were their only covering, and carrying those articles away. When the Indians had gone a second time, the grief-stricken Mr. Wood returned and reinterred the remains of his wife and child.

Mr. Wood's wounded arm was dressed by Dr. Maxwell and Dr. Kidd, his wagons were placed in the lead of our train, and again we moved westward.

CHAPTER IX.

MYSTERIOUS VISITORS. EXTRA SENTRIES. AN ANXIOUS NIGHT.

The next following day, as we wended our way among the sand dunes, alkali flats and faded sagebrush, there came to us--whence we knew not--three men, equipped with a small wagon, covered with white ducking, arched over bows, similar to the covering on most of the emigrant wagons; drawn by two large, handsome, well-harnessed horses; all having a well-to-do appearance, that made our dusty, travel-worn outfits look very cheap and inferior.

They told us that they were mountaineers, of long experience on the plains; well acquainted with the Indians and familiar with their habits and savage proclivities. They said that the Shoshone Indians were very angry at the white people who were pa.s.sing through their lands; that this hostility recently had been further aroused by certain alleged acts of the whites along the emigrant road; and that the feeling was now so intense that even they, our informants, were alarmed, notwithstanding their long, intimate and friendly intercourse with these Indians; and, believing themselves no longer safe among the tribe, they were anxious to get out of the Shoshone country; therefore they requested the privilege of placing themselves under the protection of our large train until we should have pa.s.sed out of the Shoshone lands and into those of the Pah-Utes, which tribe they said was known to be friendly toward the white race.

One of these men was a specially picturesque figure; weighty, with large, square shoulders; well-formed head; full, brown beard, cropped short. He wore a deer-skin blouse, leathern breeches; broad, stiff-brimmed hat, low crown, flat top, decorated with a ta.s.seled leather band; a fully-loaded ammunition belt--a combination make-up of cowboy, mountaineer and highwayman.

The three men spoke plain English, with a free use of "frontier adjectives."

Having received permission to take temporary protection by traveling near us, they placed themselves at the rear of our train, and that night pitched camp slightly apart from our circle of wagons.