The Cruise of a Schooner Part 6

By the time I got back to camp it was nearly dark and Doc and Bob were waiting supper for me. We find our fireless cooker and kerosene stove to be real luxuries in this sort of a country. We really live high (comparatively speaking); our appet.i.tes are always good and Bob rarely gets up anything that doesn't taste fine. Just now our larder contains honey, beans, bread, eggs, oatmeal, tea, bacon, prunes, seeded raisins, and crackers.

We turned in early as usual and were up before it was really light.

Doc missed getting a shot at a gray wolf right near camp. He said he took it for a boulder at first and so paid no attention to it; when too late, he saw it take shape and steal away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GLIMPSE OF CASTLE VALLEY]

We left camp at six-thirty. The trail was on the west side of the valley and right under the mountains, which gave us a good opportunity to study them. The scenery was really weird. The mountains took the shape of castles, not imaginary castles, but real ones. A painter could not paint anything more natural, and they were all different.

Each castle stood guard over its particular part of the valley, and all day and for several days we had a never-ending source of entertainment in this sort of scenery. It was on such an immense scale and combined with the magic colors of the desert country, that we were continually gazing at it and not at the desert underfoot, and so missed a good many chances to shoot coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions that were invariably dropping out of sight into a gulley or behind the brush, about the time our attention was called to them.

One particularly exciting incident happened before we were really started this morning. In crossing a wash the wagon had to make a detour, but Bob on Dixie rode straight across, and after topping a rise of ground he got off and sat down on a rock to wait for us to catch up. As we came over the rise I saw Dixie, but could not see Bob on account of the brush. She was browsing on the bushes. Just beyond her I saw a mountain lion, right out in the open, quietly stealing down toward her, evidently not seeing Bob and thinking there might be a colt there it could kill.

The speed with which I threw on the brake and called to Doc to get his Winchester sort of fl.u.s.trated Doc and also fl.u.s.trated the lion. It started off on a trot at right angles down the mesa as Doc pulled out his 30-30 and got ready for action. His first shot just grazed its back at about three hundred yards, and then the fun began. Bob jumped into view to see what had happened; the lion started for Colorado. Not in any reasonable manner, however. It seemed to be shot out of a gun, and Doc swung his Winchester and pumped three more shots after it. All of them seemed to be in the general direction the lion was going, but they only served to make him swerve and run faster, if that were possible.

When at last he had disappeared from sight in the dim distance,--he actually ran out of sight on bare ground,--and the smoke had blown away, Bob called out, "What was it?"

Doc said, "Didn't you see it?"

"Well," said Bob, "I am not sure whether I did or not."

I called over to Bob and said, "I saw it start anyway, and what you saw must have been what I saw start."

"Gosh all hemlock!"--or something like that--I think Doc remarked; "I never saw anything with four legs run as fast before,"--and I am sure he never did, nor any one else.

I could not help laughing, although Doc seemed quite chagrined to think he had not killed the lion. I admitted he had missed the first shot, but after that no bullet could have caught up to the beast, no matter how well aimed.

After this episode nothing especially interesting happened, and we soon reached Emery, not quite three days from Salina. We must have made about thirty miles yesterday afternoon and this morning, so we feel quite satisfied that we did not go a hundred miles to get around that canyon, although I guess we were more lucky than wise.

The little Mormon settlement called Emery is scattered all over the mesa, and has plenty of water to irrigate from five to eight hundred acres, which is enough to support the town. We stopped at the hotel for dinner, just to see what it was like, and, while we had plenty to eat, we seemed to create quite a stir. We were the only guests, and unexpected at that, so the two girls who had been left in charge while the old folks were on a trip to some railroad town, were quite a bit fl.u.s.tered. We stayed here until four-thirty in the afternoon, walking about and looking the natives over, and incidentally waiting for the postmaster to show up. In these little, out-of-the-way places the postoffice is liable to be run by somebody who appears for duty only when the mail comes in or goes out, unless he is sent for.

I put in part of the time trying to make a horse trade in the street in front of the store. I didn't want to trade horses, but I made the other fellow think he had come very near trading me a bay mare, about Dixie's size, for Kate, and so I got a line on what I could buy her for; but Doc thought her a trifle too small, so when the postman arrived we disagreed on price, and parted.

After calling for our mail we started on. We had driven only about five miles when we came to some gra.s.s, which we never pa.s.s without taking toll of, and as it was about camping time anyway we turned the horses loose to graze while we made camp.

Tuesday, June 21, was quite a day. In the first place, we met a big gray wolf about one hour from camp and I shot him through the flanks with Doc's 30-30, but missed him with two more shots before he dropped into a ravine. He was bleeding so badly that he did not go far, but as we were in a hurry and he was working up toward the mountains we concluded to let him die in peace, and so did not follow him far, although his trail was painfully plain.

Next we came to a field of white poppies. From a gray wolf's b.l.o.o.d.y trail to white poppies does not seem odd in this desert country, although now that I am writing it the change seems rather startling.

The California poppy we admired greatly, but this immense field of white ones seemed, if anything, more beautiful.

In two or three miles more we came to the top of a hill overlooking the town of Ferron. Here we had a splendid view of the mountains to the west, with a Moorish castle looking down on us, gray b.u.t.tes below us, and in the distance the town of Ferron with its bright green alfalfa field, Carolina poplars, and cottonwood trees. This was such a grand color scheme that I took a picture of it, forgetting that color does not show in a photograph and that immense distances are beyond duplication by the ordinary lens, at least, and so got a very unsatisfactory picture.

Pa.s.sing through Ferron we made camp by an irrigation ditch, under a cottonwood tree, and did some laundry work, which was put to dry while we ate lunch, after which we drove on into Castledale, stopping at Jim Jeff's Camp House, making twenty miles for the day. Here we decided to stay a day and rest the horses, so after feeding them all we turned Bess and Kate into his pasture, keeping Dixie up so we could take better care of her neck, which was quite sore.

Castledale we found to be the largest town in Castle Valley. There is Emery on Muddy Creek, Ferron on Ferron Creek, and Castledale on Cottonwood Creek, and beyond is a town called Huntington on Huntington Creek. These creeks or brooks are all supposed to flow into the Cottonwood farther down, but each little town takes most of the water into its irrigation ditches as the water leaves the mountains, and so very little of it ever gets far on its way to the valley below, except in freshet times. Any one expecting to find water in these creeks below the towns is usually a tenderfoot, and needs a water barrel, and some good advice. We did not have the advice, but we had the water barrel and so far have not suffered for good water.

Our camp was in Jim Jeff's yard. He had a house for the accommodation of freighters, but we preferred the ground. However, we did make away with a great many of his eggs and some green stuff from the garden.

We put in the next day, Wednesday, cleaning up, writing, and making a few purchases. I remembered that this was the day my sister was to have been married, and here I was, fifty miles from the railroad in a desert town, unable to telephone or telegraph, and I had expected to be able to send her a message. Doc and I were walking down the road to the store, when on the side porch of a house I saw the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's long distance sign nailed to a post.

"Hold on," I said, "there is a familiar look to that sign; just you go on and I will follow it up and see whether it is going to do me any good or not."

So into the house I went. Here I found a girl who was running all the telephone business for the town and surrounding country. She said the line ran to some town on the railroad, the name of which I didn't catch, but that didn't interest me. What I wanted to know was if I could talk to the station agent at this town, and when I found I could, I said, "Well, you just call him up quick. I want to say something to him real sudden." In about an hour I got that message off to my sister, which shows how suddenly things happen in that country.

When I came out of the house I found Doc had made the necessary purchases at the store and was patiently waiting on the porch. We had left Bob at Jeff's place, cleaning up, and so went back and helped.

Our day here was not especially interesting. The town has about five to six hundred people scattered about over quite a large area. During the afternoon, however, things began to liven up. Young fellows from a few miles out began riding in to Jeff's and putting up their horses and changing clothes. It seemed such a funny performance that I asked Jeff what was up. "Just a dance," he said, and walked off huffy-like.

I couldn't see why that should bother him, but I found out afterward that he was too much of a dyed-in-the-wool old Mormon to appreciate the beneficial results to the young folks of indulging in a free-for-all dance.

He had lived here thirty-one years and had ten children. Incidentally, I might say one wife. We did not see anywhere any evidence of polygamy and I guess that it is a dead issue. His house, one of the best in town, was brick, and had running water in it. He had all kinds of fowl around the yard, including peac.o.c.ks and hens. Five miles east toward Green River he had a ranch of several thousand acres; so on the whole he was quite a substantial citizen, and was able to give us some good advice about our trail between here and Green River.

Just as a sample of some of the instructions we had been getting from the natives _en route_, it may be interesting to give Jim Jeff's instructions as to how we were to reach Green River. They were something like this, but not _verbatim_: "It is about sixty miles over there and not a house on the trail, and on account of the dry weather (it hasn't rained here in three months) probably all the water holes are dry except Huntington Creek, which is alkali. Don't drink any yourself and don't let your horses drink much. I guess, to be on the safe side, you better plan not to find any water, so fill both your barrels and be careful to get through on that, because, although there _may be_ water the horses can drink thirty miles from here, you may not find it as it is off the trail, and if you depend on it and miss it you will be awfully dry before you get to Green River."

Then he drew us a diagram of the trail, told us where the bad places were, wished us good luck, and said good-bye. We turned in for an early start in the morning. That start was so early we met the young folks coming home from the dance.

It was Thursday morning, the twenty-third of June, that we filled our barrels and started on our sixty-mile stretch to Green River. We crossed Castle Valley to the east, climbed up on the mesa after crossing Huntington Creek, and made about fourteen miles before we stopped for lunch. From one of the benches we had a splendid view of the whole of Castle Valley and could see sixty miles south, and forty miles north, from this point. We picked out the pa.s.s over the mountains to the south where we came into the valley, by the snow-capped mountain above it, and could see the range of mountains distinctly forty miles north, and our row of castles to the southwest.

To the southeast lay some barren-looking peaks called "Robbers'

Roost," where Ba.s.sett and his gang held forth for so long. It was a hard but fascinating country, but Bob brought me to earth as I stood admiring the scene by saying, "Some society and a little water would change this for the better a whole lot, wouldn't it?" I didn't say anything, but thought the water would certainly help, but as for the society I preferred the prospect without habitations, which would take away the charm of it for me.

Starting on over a rolling country at about four thousand feet elevation we met, fortunately, around 3:30 P. M., two men in a buggy, driving one horse and leading another. They told us it was about fifteen miles to the water hole, that there was still a barrel of water there, that we could find it by watching the trail after we had gone about fifteen miles, and that we would see where they had turned out of the trail, if we looked sharp, They told us the water was not where they had turned out, as they had missed the place, but that it was a quarter of a mile farther on, as they had afterward discovered.

They told us also when we came to the forks of the trail to take the right fork; that was all, but it was enough.

It would seem like a difficult problem to tell when you have gone fifteen miles in such a country, but we could calculate that about as easily as we could tell the time of day by the sun. Having lost my watch in the early part of the trip I had discovered I didn't need it anyway, and was saved the trouble of winding it every night. In calling off the time to Doc and Bob I found that I agreed with their watches almost exactly, although once I missed it by fifteen minutes; but I am not sure I was not right even then.

So it was on the trail. We knew how many hours we had been traveling and could tell to almost a certainty how many miles we were making per hour, and thus had no difficulty in telling how far we had gone.

When we had climbed to the top of another rise Doc said, "Well, it is four o'clock and we are fifteen miles from water. We will make about five miles more to-day, and then we can water the horses to-morrow morning at that water hole, about 10 A. M., and just let them do without water for breakfast." That sounded about right to me, but I wasn't sure about the 10 A. M. schedule. I thought we could make ten miles before 10 A. M., but we carried this programme out almost to the letter. We drove on for about five miles and camped for the night, having made about twenty-two miles of the sixty that day.

The next day, Friday, the twenty-fourth, was a long, hard day. The horses all did well, but it was up hill and down over rocks and through heavy sand, and several times we had to use all the horses at once. About nine-thirty Doc rode Dixie on ahead, looking for the place where the buggy had turned out, and when we saw him waiting for us by the side of the trail we knew he had found the water; in fact, he had gone right to it with the directions we had received, but without those tell-tale wheel tracks a quarter of a mile from the water, I do not believe we would have found it.

The water was down in a miniature canyon, in a bowl-shaped rock, where stock could not get to it, or the sun's rays reach it for any length of time, and this rock bowl held, when full, probably twenty barrels of water. The little stream had long ago gone dry, but here out of sight were still a few barrels of water left. It took us quite a while to get the horses down over the rocks close to the water, and it was a case of bucket brigade to get it out to them. When we had them back at the wagon again I noticed that it was ten o'clock; so we did find the water before ten, but I didn't think there was enough difference in time to call Doc's attention to it.

After lunch, about 4 P. M., we pa.s.sed a wash that looked wet to me and I asked Doc if he wouldn't explore it, while the horses rested in the shade of a cottonwood tree. He came back presently with the information that there was good water about "half a quarter" above, so we unhitched and all went up, and found water running in the bed of the stream for about four feet in one place and about ten feet in another. It was just a case of one of those underground, bottom-side-up streams having a leak in the top, and the water had come up through. The find made us feel safe on the water question. We still had water in our barrels; had found water twice for the horses, and just where Jeff had told us we _might_ find it; and felt quite "sot up" over it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CLAY b.u.t.tES NEAR GREEN RIVER]

We camped at night in the dry bed of a stream, the bottom of which was covered with a white alkali deposit, that looked like snow and was nearly one-half inch thick. We concluded this must be Soda Creek and that we had made only twenty miles during the day, so that we were still about eighteen miles from Green River.

This is certainly a hard, rough country, a succession of canyons and mountains, with a variety of colors in the sand and rocks. We have not met a soul or seen a living thing, save some cattle this evening in the creek bed. Not a thing lives here, it would seem, but a coyote, now and then a skylark, and a few lizards and horned toads. There is plenty of gra.s.s evidently earlier in the season, but the cattle are now mostly moved out on account of lack of water. Those we saw this evening were probably overlooked, or else have a few alkali holes still available somewhere near. It is surprising how strong water the cattle can stand when they are used to it, but if it doesn't rain soon in this country even the birds will have to leave.

We were up the next morning at four-thirty and were under way at six, reaching Green River at 11 A. M., over a variety of roads and through the most desolate stretch of country I have ever seen. The sandy desert was cheerful in comparison. When we came down from among the bare clay b.u.t.tes the trail ran along a little stream and we began to see signs of life,--a coyote first, then a queer bird, trying to find water enough to swim in. It was some species of the duck family, but we could not find a name for it. It looked like a cross between a mud hen and a duck, was gray in color and had a short bill. It had probably come up from Green River and was lost.

As we crossed the railroad track coming into Green River we pa.s.sed a big sign board on which was printed:

"FOR SALE 7,000 acres of the best fruit land in the world by a Dam Site."

After we had spent two days and a half in that town we concluded the printer had probably by mistake used the word _of_ when he should have used _not_.

We found the river was not fordable here, but that there was a ferry which would take us across if we wanted to go to-day; to-morrow it would stop running. So we took the last chance and crossed, camping on the other side on a bare bench about two hundred yards from the river.

There is one store and a corral here, and the place is called Elgin.

Obtaining permission to turn our horses into the corral we were free to go over the railroad bridge to Green River, get our mail, inspect the town, and buy a few provisions.