The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway Part 23

The traders were profuse in their thanks to Carson for his timely interference, but he refused every offer of remuneration. On their return to Santa Fe from St. Louis, however, they presented him with a magnificent pair of pistols, upon whose silver mounting was an inscription commemorating his brave deed and the grat.i.tude of the donors.

The following summer was spent in a visit to St. Louis, and early in the fall he returned over the Trail, arriving at the Cheyenne village on the Upper Arkansas without meeting with any incident worthy of note. On reaching that point, he learned that the Indians had received a terrible affront from an officer commanding a detachment of United States troops, who had whipped one of their chiefs; and that consequently the whole tribe was enraged, and burning for revenge upon the whites. Carson was the first white man to approach the place since the insult, and so many years had elapsed since he was the hunter at Bent's Fort, and so grievously had the Indians been offended, that his name no longer guaranteed safety to the party with whom he was travelling, nor even insured respect to himself, in the state of excitement existing in the village. Carson, however, deliberately pushed himself into the presence of a war council which was just then in session to consider the question of attacking the caravan, giving orders to his men to keep close together, and guard against a surprise.

The savages, supposing that he could not understand their language, talked without restraint, and unfolded their plans to capture his party and kill them all, particularly the leader. After they had reached this decision, Carson coolly rose and addressed the council in the Cheyenne language, informing the Indians who he was, of his former a.s.sociations with and kindness to their tribe, and that now he was ready to render them any a.s.sistance they might require; but as to their taking his scalp, he claimed the right to say a word.

The Indians departed, and Carson went on his way; but there were hundreds of savages in sight on the sand hills, and, though they made no attack, he was well aware that he was in their power, nor had they abandoned the idea of capturing his train. His coolness and deliberation kept his men in spirit, and yet out of the whole fifteen, which was the total number of his force, there were only two or three on whom he could place any reliance in case of an emergency.

When the train camped for the night, the wagons were corralled, and the men and mules all brought inside the circle. Gra.s.s was cut with sheath-knives and fed to the animals, instead of their being picketed out as usual, and as large a guard as possible detailed. When the camp had settled down to perfect quiet, Carson crawled outside it, taking with him a Mexican boy, and after explaining to him the danger which threatened them all, told him that it was in his power to save the lives of the company. Then he sent him on alone to Rayedo, a journey of nearly three hundred miles, to ask for an escort of United States troops to be sent out to meet the train, impressing upon the brave little Mexican the importance of putting a good many miles between himself and the camp before morning. And so he started him, with a few rations of food, without letting the rest of his party know that such measures were necessary. The boy had been in Carson's service for some time, and was known to him as a faithful and active messenger, and in a wild country like New Mexico, with the outdoor life and habits of its people, such a journey was not an unusual occurrence.

Carson now returned to the camp, to watch all night himself, and at daybreak all were on the Trail again. No Indians made their appearance until nearly noon, when five warriors came galloping up toward the train. As soon as they came close enough to hear his voice, Carson ordered them to halt, and going up to them, told how he had sent a messenger to Rayedo the night before to inform the troops that their tribe were annoying him, and that if he or his men were molested, terrible punishment would be inflicted by those who would surely come to his relief. The savages replied that they would look for the moccasin tracks, which they undoubtedly found, and the whole village pa.s.sed away toward the hills after a little while, evidently seeking a place of safety from an expected attack by the troops.

The young Mexican overtook the detachment of soldiers whose officer had caused all the trouble with the Indians, to whom he told his story; but failing to secure any sympathy, he continued his journey to Rayedo, and procured from the garrison of that place immediate a.s.sistance. Major Grier, commanding the post, at once despatched a troop of his regiment, which, by forced marches, met Carson twenty-five miles below Bent's Fort, and though it encountered no Indians, the rapid movement had a good effect upon the savages, impressing them with the power and promptness of the government.

Early in the spring of 1865, Carson was ordered, with three companies, to put a stop to the depredations of marauding bands of Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Comanches upon the caravans and emigrant outfits travelling the Santa Fe Trail. He left Fort Union with his command and marched over the Dry or Cimarron route to the Arkansas River, for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng a fortified camp at Cedar Bluffs, or Cold Spring, to afford a refuge for the freight trains on that dangerous part of the Trail. The Indians had for some time been hara.s.sing not only the caravans of the citizen traders, but also those of the government, which carried supplies to the several military posts in the Territory of New Mexico.

An expedition was therefore planned by Carson to punish them, and he soon found an opportunity to strike a blow near the adobe fort on the Canadian River. His force consisted of the First Regiment of New Mexican Volunteer Cavalry and seventy-five friendly Indians, his entire command numbering fourteen commissioned officers and three hundred and ninety-six enlisted men. With these he attacked the Kiowa village, consisting of about one hundred and fifty lodges. The fight was a very severe one, and lasted from half-past eight in the morning until after sundown. The savages, with more than ordinary intrepidity and boldness, made repeated stands against the fierce onslaughts of Carson's cavalrymen, but were at last forced to give way, and were cut down as they stubbornly retreated, suffering a loss of sixty killed and wounded.

In this battle only two privates and one noncommissioned officer were killed, and one non-commissioned officer and thirteen privates, four of whom were friendly Indians, wounded. The command destroyed one hundred and fifty lodges, a large amount of dried meats, berries, buffalo-robes, cooking utensils, and also a buggy and spring-wagon, the property of Sierrito,[50] the Kiowa chief.

In his official account of the fight, Carson states that he found ammunition in the village, which had been furnished, no doubt, by unscrupulous Mexican traders.

He told me that he never was deceived by Indian tactics but once in his life. He said that he was hunting with six others after buffalo, in the summer of 1835; that they had been successful, and came into their little bivouac one night very tired, intending to start for the rendezvous at Bent's Fort the next morning. They had a number of dogs, among them some excellent animals. These barked a good deal, and seemed restless, and the men heard wolves.

"I saw," said Kit, "two big wolves sneaking about, one of them quite close to us. Gordon, one of my men, wanted to fire his rifle at it, but I did not let him, for fear he would hit a dog. I admit that I had a sort of an idea that those wolves might be Indians; but when I noticed one of them turn short around, and heard the clas.h.i.+ng of his teeth as he rushed at one of the dogs, I felt easy then, and was certain that they were wolves sure enough. But the red devil fooled me, after all, for he had two dried buffalo bones in his hands under the wolfskin, and he rattled them together every time he turned to make a dash at the dogs!

Well, by and by we all dozed off, and it wasn't long before I was suddenly aroused by a noise and a big blaze. I rushed out the first thing for our mules, and held them. If the savages had been at all smart, they could have killed us in a trice, but they ran as soon as they fired at us. They killed one of my men, putting five bullets in his body and eight in his buffalo-robe. The Indians were a band of Sioux on the war-trail after a band of Snakes, and found us by sheer accident.

They endeavoured to ambush us the next morning, but we got wind of their little game and killed three of them, including the chief."

Carson's nature was made up of some very n.o.ble attributes. He was brave, but not reckless like Custer; a veritable exponent of Christian altruism, and as true to his friends as the needle to the pole. Under the average stature, and rather delicate-looking in his physical proportions, he was nevertheless a quick, wiry man, with nerves of steel, and possessing an indomitable will. He was full of caution, but showed a coolness in the moment of supreme danger that was good to witness.

During a short visit at Fort Lyon, Colorado, where a favourite son of his was living, early in the morning of May 23, 1868, while mounting his horse in front of his quarters (he was still fond of riding), an artery in his neck was suddenly ruptured, from the effects of which, notwithstanding the medical a.s.sistance rendered by the fort surgeons, he died in a few moments.

His remains, after reposing for some time at Fort Lyon, were taken to Taos, so long his home in New Mexico, where an appropriate monument was erected over them. In the Plaza at Santa Fe, his name also appears cut on a cenotaph raised to commemorate the services of the soldiers of the Territory. As an Indian fighter he was matchless. The identical rifle used by him for more than thirty-five years, and which never failed him, he bequeathed, just before his death, to Montezuma Lodge, A. F. & A. M., Santa Fe, of which he was a member.

James Bridger, "Major Bridger," or "Old Jim Bridger," as we was called, another of the famous coterie of pioneer frontiersmen, was born in Was.h.i.+ngton, District of Columbia, in 1807. When very young, a mere boy in fact, he joined the great trapping expedition under the leaders.h.i.+p of James Ashley, and with it travelled to the far West, remote from the extreme limit of border civilization, where he became the compeer and comrade of Carson, and certainly the foremost mountaineer, strictly speaking, the United States has produced.

Having left behind him all possibilities of education at such an early age, he was illiterate in his speech and as ignorant of the conventionalities of polite society as an Indian; but he possessed a heart overflowing with the milk of human kindness, was generous in the extreme, and honest and true as daylight.

He was especially distinguished for the discovery of a defile through the intricate mazes of the Rocky Mountains, which bears his name, Bridger's Pa.s.s. He rendered important services as guide and scout during the early preliminary surveys for a transcontinental railroad, and for a series of years was in the employ of the government, in the old regular army on the great plains and in the mountains, long before the breaking out of the Civil War. To Bridger also belongs the honour of having seen, first of all white men, the Great Salt Lake of Utah, in the winter of 1824-25.

After a series of adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and terrible encounters with the Indians, in 1856 he purchased a farm near Westport, Missouri; but soon left it in his hunger for the mountains, to return to it only when worn-out and blind, to be buried there without even the rudest tablet to mark the spot.

"I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb of the Capulets." This quotation came to my mind one Sunday morning two or three years ago, as I mused over Bridger's neglected grave among the low hills beyond the quaint old town of Westport. I thought I knew, as I stood there, that he whose bones were mouldering beneath the blossoming clover at my feet, would have wished for his last couch a more perfect solitude and isolation from the wearisome world's busy sound than even the immortal Burke.

The gra.s.sy mound, over which there was no stone to record the name of its occupant, covered the remains of the last of his cla.s.s, a type vanished forever, for the border is a thing of the past; and upon the gentle breeze of that delightful morning, like the droning of bees in a full flowered orchard, was wafted to my ears the hum of Kansas City's civilization, only three or four miles distant, in all of which I was sure there was nothing that would have been congenial to the old frontiersman.

At one time early in the '60's, while the engineers of the proposed Union Pacific Railway were temporarily in Denver, then an insignificant mushroom-hamlet, they became somewhat confused as to the most practicable point in the range over which to run their line. After debating the question, they determined, upon a suggestion from some of the old settlers, to send for Jim Bridger, who was then visiting in St.

Louis. A pa.s.s, via the overland stage, was enclosed in a letter to him, and he was urged to start for Denver at once, though nothing of the business for which his presence was required was told him in the text.

In about two weeks the old man arrived, and the next morning, after he had rested, asked why he had been sent for from such a distance.

The engineers then began to explain their dilemma. The old mountaineer waited patiently until they had finished, when, with a look of disgust on his withered countenance, he demanded a large piece of paper, remarking at the same time,--

"I could a told you fellers all that in St. Louis, and saved you the expense of bringing me out here."

He was handed a sheet of manilla paper, used for drawing the details of bridge plans. The veteran pathfinder spread it on the ground before him, took a dead coal from the ashes of the fire, drew a rough outline map, and pointing to a certain peak just visible on the serrated horizon, said,--

"There's where you fellers can cross with your road, and nowhere else, without more diggin' an' cuttin' than you think of."

That crude map is preserved, I have been told, in the archives of the great corporation, and its line crosses the main spurs of the Rocky Mountains, just where Bridger said it could with the least work.

The resemblance of old John Smith, another of the coterie, to President Andrew Johnson was absolutely astonis.h.i.+ng. When that chief magistrate, in his "swinging around the circle," had arrived at St. Louis, and was riding through the streets of that city in an open barouche, he was pointed out to Bridger, who happened to be there. But the venerable guide and scout, with supreme disgust depicted on his countenance at the idea of any one attempting to deceive him, said to his informant,--

"H---l! Bill, you can't fool me! That's old John Smith."

At one time many years ago, during Bridger's first visit to St. Louis, then a relatively small place, a friend accidentally came across him sitting on a dry-goods box in one of the narrow streets, evidently disgusted with his situation. To the inquiry as to what he was doing there all alone, the old man replied,--

"I've been settin' in this infernal canyon ever sence mornin', waitin'

for some one to come along an' invite me to take a drink. Hundreds of fellers has pa.s.sed both ways, but none of 'em has opened his head. I never seen sich a onsociable crowd!"

Bridger had a fund of most remarkable stories, which he had drawn upon so often that he really believed them to be true.

General Gatlin,[51] who was graduated from West Point in the early '30's, and commanded Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation over sixty years ago, told me that he remembered Bridger very well; and had once asked the old guide whether he had ever been in the great canyon of the Colorado River.

"Yes, sir," replied the mountaineer, "I have, many a time. There's where the oranges and lemons bear all the time, and the only place I was ever at where the moon's always full!"

He told me and also many others, at various times, that in the winter of 1830 it began to snow in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and continued for seventy days without cessation. The whole country was covered to a depth of seventy feet, and all the vast herds of buffalo were caught in the storm and died, but their carca.s.ses were perfectly preserved.

"When spring came, all I had to do," declared he, "was to tumble 'em into Salt Lake, an' I had pickled buffalo enough for myself and the whole Ute Nation for years!"

He said that on account of that terrible storm, which annihilated them, there have been no buffalo in that region since.

Bridger had been the guide, interpreter, and companion of that distinguished Irish sportsman, Sir George Gore, whose strange tastes led him in 1855 to abandon life in Europe and bury himself for over two years among the savages in the wildest and most unfrequented glens of the Rocky Mountains.

The outfit and adventures of this t.i.tled Nimrod, conducted as they were on the largest scale, exceeded anything of the kind ever before seen on this continent, and the results of his wanderings will compare favourably with those of Gordon c.u.mming in Africa.

Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of his outfit when it is stated that his retinue consisted of about fifty individuals, including secretaries, steward, cooks, fly-makers, dog-tenders, servants, etc.

He was borne over the country with a train of thirty wagons, besides numerous saddle-horses and dogs.

During his lengthened hunt he killed the enormous aggregate of forty grizzly bears and twenty-five hundred buffalo, besides numerous antelope and other small game.

Bridger said of Sir George that he was a bold, das.h.i.+ng, and successful hunter, and an agreeable gentleman. His habit was to lie in bed until about ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, then he took a bath, ate his breakfast, and set out, generally alone, for the day's hunt, and it was not unusual for him to remain out until ten at night, seldom returning to the tents without augmenting the catalogue of his beasts. His dinner was then served, to which he generally extended an invitation to Bridger, and after the meal was over, and a few gla.s.ses of wine had been drunk, he was in the habit of reading from some book, and eliciting from Bridger his comments thereon. His favourite author was Shakespeare, which Bridger "reckin'd was too highfalutin" for him; moreover he remarked, "thet he rather calcerlated that thar big Dutchman, Mr.

Full-stuff, was a leetle too fond of lager beer," and thought it would have been better for the old man if he had "stuck to Bourbon whiskey straight."

Bridger seemed very much interested in the adventures of Baron Munchausen, but admitted after Sir George had finished reading them, that "he be dog'oned ef he swallered everything that thar Baron Munchausen said," and thought he was "a darned liar," yet he acknowledged that some of his own adventures among the Blackfeet woul be equally marvellous "if writ down in a book."

A man whose one act had made him awe-inspiring was Belzy Dodd. Uncle d.i.c.k Wooton, in relating the story, says: "I don't know what his first name was, but Belzy was what we called him. His head was as bald as a billiard ball, and he wore a wig. One day while we were all at Bent's Fort, while there were a great number of Indians about, Belzy concluded to have a bit of fun. He walked around, eying the Indians fiercely for some time, and finally, das.h.i.+ng in among them, he gave a series of war-whoops which discounted a Comanche yell, and pulling off his wig, threw it down at the feet of the astonished and terror-stricken red men.

"The savages thought the fellow had jerked off his own scalp, and not one of them wanted to stay and see what would happen next. They left the fort, running like so many scared jack-rabbits, and after that none of them could be induced to approach anywhere near Dodd."

They called him "The-white-man-who-scalps-himself," and Uncle d.i.c.k said that he believed he could have travelled across the plains alone with perfect safety.