The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway Part 35

General Sully, about the 1st of September, with eight companies of the Seventh Cavalry and five companies of infantry, left Fort Dodge, on the Arkansas, on a hurried expedition against the Kiowas, Arapahoes, and Cheyennes. The command marched in a general southeasterly direction, and reached the sand hills of the Beaver and Wolf rivers, by a circuitous route, on the fifth day. When nearly through that barren region, they were attacked by a force of eight hundred of the allied tribes under the leaders.h.i.+p of the famous Kiowa chief, Satanta. A running fight was kept up with the savages on the first day, in which two of the cavalry were killed and one wounded.

That night the savages came close enough to camp to fire into it (an unusual proceeding in Indian warfare, as they rarely molest troops during the night), I now quote from Custer again:

The next day General Sully directed his march down the valley of the Beaver; but just as his troops were breaking camp, the long wagon-train having already "pulled out," and the rear guard of the command having barely got into their saddles, a party of between two and three hundred warriors, who had evidently in some inexplicable manner contrived to conceal themselves until the proper moment, dashed into the deserted camp within a few yards of the rear of the troops, and succeeded in cutting off a few led horses and two of the cavalrymen who, as is often the case, had lingered a moment behind the column.

Fortunately, the acting adjutant of the cavalry, Brevet Captain A. E. Smith, was riding at the rear of the column and witnessed the attack of the Indians. Captain Hamilton,[70]

of the Seventh Cavalry, was also present in command of the rear guard. Wheeling to the rightabout, he at once prepared to charge the Indians and attempt the rescue of the two troopers who were being carried off before his very eyes.

At the same time, Captain Smith, as representative of the commanding officer of the cavalry, promptly took the responsibility of directing a squadron of the cavalry to wheel out of column and advance in support of Captain Hamilton's guard. With this hastily formed detachment, the Indians, still within pistol-range, but moving off with their prisoners, were gallantly charged and so closely pressed that they were forced to relinquish one of their prisoners, but not before shooting him through the body and leaving him on the ground, as they supposed, mortally wounded.

The troops continued to charge the retreating Indians, upon whom they were gaining, determined, if possible, to effect the rescue of their remaining comrade. They were advancing down one slope while the Indians, just across a ravine, were endeavouring to escape with their prisoner up the opposite ascent, when a peremptory order reached the officers commanding the pursuing force to withdraw their men and reform the column at once. The terrible fate awaiting the unfortunate trooper carried off by the Indians spread a deep gloom throughout the command. All were too familiar with the horrid customs of the savages to hope for a moment that the captive would be reserved for aught but a slow, lingering death, from tortures the most horrible and painful which blood-thirsty minds could suggest. Such was the truth in his case, as we learned afterwards when peace (?) was established with the tribes then engaged in war.

The expedition proceeded down the valley of the Beaver, the Indians contesting every step of the way. In the afternoon, about three o'clock, the troops arrived at a ridge of sand hills a few miles southeast of the presentsite of Camp Supply, where quite a determined engagement took place between the command and the three tribes, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Kiowas, the Indians being the a.s.sailants. The Indians seemed to have reserved their strongest efforts until the troops and train had advanced well into the sand hills, when a most obstinate resistance--and well conducted, too--was offered the farther advance of the troops. It was evident that the troops were probably nearing the Indian villages, and that this opposition to further advance was to save them. The character of the country immediately about the troops was not favourable to the operations of cavalry; the surface of the rolling plain was cut up by irregular and closely located sand hills, too steep and sandy to allow cavalry to move with freedom, yet capable of being easily cleared of savages by troops fighting on foot. The Indians took post on the hilltops and began a hara.s.sing fire on the troops and train. Captain Yates, with a single troop of cavalry, was ordered forward to drive them away. This was a proceeding which did not seem to meet with favour from the savages. Captain Yates could drive them wherever he encountered them, but they appeared in increased numbers at some other threatened point. After contending in this non-effective manner for a couple of hours, the impression arose in the minds of some that the train could not be conducted through the sand hills in the face of the strong opposition offered by the Indians. The order was issued to turn about and withdraw. The order was executed, and the troop and train, followed by the exultant Indians, retired a few miles to the Beaver, and encamped for the night on the ground afterward known as Camp Supply.

Captain Yates had caused to be brought off the field, when his troop was ordered to retire, the body of one of his men, who had been slain in the fight. As the troops were to continue their backward march next day, and it was impossible to transport the dead body further, Captain Yates ordered preparations made for interring it in camp that night.

Knowing that the Indians would thoroughly search the deserted camp-ground almost before the troops should get out of sight, and would be quick, with their watchful eyes, to detect a grave, and, if successful in discovering it, would unearth the body in order to get the scalp, directions were given to prepare the grave after nightfall; and the spot selected would have baffled any one but an Indian. The grave was dug under the picket line to which the seventy or eighty horses of the troop would be tethered during the night, so that their constant tramping and pawing should completely cover up and obliterate all traces. The following morning, even those who had performed the sad rites of burial to their fallen comrade could scarcely have indicated the exact location of the grave. Yet when we returned to that point a few weeks later, it was discovered that the wily savages had found the place, unearthed the body, and removed the scalp of their victim on the day following the interment.[71]

After leaving the camp at Supply, the Indians gradually increased their force, until they mustered about two thousand warriors. For four days and nights they hovered around the command, and by the time it reached Mulberry Creek there were not one thousand rounds of ammunition left in the whole force of troopers and infantrymen. At the creek, the incessant charges of the now infuriated savages compelled the troops to use this small amount held in reserve, and they found themselves almost at the mercy of the Indians. But before they were absolutely defenceless, Colonel Keogh had sent a trusty messenger in the night to Fort Dodge for a supply of cartridges to meet the command at the creek, which fortunately arrived there in time to save that spot from being a veritable "last ditch."

The savages, in the little but exciting encounter at the creek before the ammunition arrived, would ride up boldly toward the squadrons of cavalry, discharge the shots from their revolvers, and then, in their rage, throw them at the skirmishers on the flanks of the supply-train, while the latter, nearly out of ammunition, were compelled to sit quietly in their saddles, idle spectators of the extraordinary scene.[72]

Many of the Indians were killed on their ponies, however, by those who were fortunate enough to have a few cartridges left; but none were captured, as the savages had taken their usual precaution to tie themselves to their animals, and as soon as dead were dragged away by them.

CHAPTER XXIV. INVASION OF THE RAILROAD.

The tourist who to-day, in a palace car, surrounded by all the conveniences of our American railway service, commences his tour of the prairies at the Missouri River, enters cla.s.sic ground the moment the train leaves the muddy flood of that stream on its swift flight toward the golden sh.o.r.es of the Pacific.

He finds a large city at the very portals of the once far West, with all the bustle and energy which is so characteristic of American enterprise.

Gradually, as he is whirled along the iron trail, the woods lessen; he catches views of beautiful intervales; a bright little stream flashes and foams in the sunlight as the trees grow fewer, and soon he emerges on the broad sea of prairie, shut in only by the great circle of the heavens.

Dotting this motionless ocean everywhere, like whitened sails, are quiet homes, real argosies ventured by the st.u.r.dy and industrious people who have fought their way through almost insurmountable difficulties to the tranquillity which now surrounds them.

A few miles west of Topeka, the capital of Kansas, when the train reaches the little hamlet of Wakarusa, the track of the railroad commences to follow the route of the Old Santa Fe Trail. At that point, too, the Oregon Trail branches off for the heavily timbered regions of the Columbia. Now begins the cla.s.sic ground of the once famous highway to New Mexico; nearly every stream, hill, and wooded dell has its story of adventure in those days when the railroad was regarded as an impossibility, and the region beyond the Missouri as a veritable desert.

After some hours' rapid travelling, if our tourist happens to be a pa.s.senger on the "California Limited," the swift train that annihilates distance, he will pa.s.s by towns, hamlets, and immense cattle ranches, stopping only at county-seats, and enter the justly famous Arkansas valley at the city of Hutchinson. The Old Trail now pa.s.ses a few miles north of this busy place, which is noted for its extensive salt works, nor does the railroad again meet with it until the site of old Fort Zarah is reached, forty-seven miles west of Hutchinson, though it runs nearly parallel to the once great highway at varying distances for the whole detour.

The ruins of the once important military post may be seen from the car-windows on the right, as the train crosses the iron bridge spanning the Walnut, and here the Old Trail exactly coincides with the railroad, the track of the latter running immediately on the old highway.

Three miles westward from the cla.s.sic little Walnut the Old Trail ran through what is now the Court House Square of the town of Great Bend; it may be seen from the station, and on that very spot occurred the terrible fight of Captains Booth and Hallowell in 1864.

Thirteen miles further mountainward, on the right of the railroad, not far from the track, stands all that remains of the once dreaded p.a.w.nee Rock. It lies just beyond the limits of the little hamlet bearing its name. It would not be recognized by any of the old plainsmen were they to come out of their isolated graves; for it is only a disintegrated, low ma.s.s of sandstone now, utilized for the base purposes of a corral, in which the village herd of milch cows lie down at night and chew their cuds, such peaceful transformation has that great civilizer, the locomotive, wrought in less than two decades.

Another five or six miles, and the train crosses Ash Creek, which, too, was once one of the favourite haunts of the p.a.w.nee and Comanche on their predatory excursions, in the days when the mules and horses of pa.s.sing freight caravans excited their cupidity. A short whirl again, and the town of Larned, lying peacefully on the Arkansas and p.a.w.nee Fork, is reached. Immediately opposite the centre of the street through which the railroad runs, and which was also the course of the Old Trail, lying in the Arkansas River, close to its northern bank, is a small thickly-wooded island, now reached by a bridge, that is famous as the battle-ground of a terrible conflict thirty years ago, between the p.a.w.nees and Cheyennes, hereditary enemies, in which the latter tribe was cruelly defeated.

The railroad bridge crosses p.a.w.nee Fork at the precise spot where the Old Trail did. This locality has been the scene of some of the bloodiest encounters between the various tribes of savages themselves, and between them and the freight caravans, the overland coaches, and every other kind of outfit that formerly attempted the pa.s.sage of the now peaceful stream. In fact, the whole region from Walnut Creek to the mouth of the p.a.w.nee, which includes in its area Ash Creek and p.a.w.nee Rock, seemed to be the greatest resort for the Indians, who hovered about the Santa Fe Trail for the sole purpose of robbery and murder; it was a very lucky caravan or coach, indeed, that pa.s.sed through that portion of the route without being attacked.

All the once dangerous points of the Old Trail having been successively pa.s.sed--Cow Creek, Big and Little c.o.o.n, and Ash Creek, Fort Dodge, Fort Aubrey,[73] and Point of Rocks--the tourist arrives at last at the foot-hills. At La Junta the railroad separates into two branches; one going to Denver, the other on to New Mexico. Here, a relatively short distance to the northwest, on the right of the train, may be seen the ruins of Bent's Fort, the tourist having already pa.s.sed the site of the once famous Big Timbers, a favourite winter camping-ground of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes; but everywhere around him there reigns such perfect quiet and pastoral beauty, he might imagine that the peaceful landscape upon which he looks had never been a b.l.o.o.d.y arena.

I suggest to the lover of nature that he should cross the Raton Range in the early morning, or late in the afternoon; for then the magnificent scenery of the Trail over the high divide into New Mexico a.s.sumes its most beautiful aspect.

In approaching the range from the Old Trail, or now from the railroad, their snow-clad peaks may be seen at a distance of sixty miles. In the era of caravans and pack-trains, for hour after hour, as they moved slowly toward the goal of their ambition, the summit of the fearful pathway on the divide, the huge forms of the mountains seemed to recede, and yet ascend higher. On the next day's journey their outlines appeared more irregular and ragged. Drawing still nearer, their base presented a long, dark strip stretching throughout their whole course, ever widening until it seemed like a fathomless gulf, separating the world of reality from the realms of imagination beyond.

Another weary twenty miles of dusty travel, and the black void slowly dissolved, and out of the shadows lines of broken, sterile, ferruginous b.u.t.tes and detached ma.s.ses of rocks, whose soilless surface refuses sustenance, save to a few scattered, stunted pines and lifeless mosses, emerged to view.

The progress of the weary-footed mules or oxen was now through ravines and around rocks; up narrow paths which the melting snows have washed out; sometimes between beetling cliffs, often to their very edge, where hundreds of feet below the Trail the tall trees seemed diminished into shrubs. Then again the road led over an immense broad terrace, for thousands of yards around, with a bright lake gleaming in the refracted light, and brilliant Alpine plants waving their beautiful flowers on its margin. Still the coveted summit appeared so far off as to be beyond the range of vision, and it seemed as if, instead of ascending, the entire ma.s.s underneath had been receding, like the mountains of ice over which Arctic explorers attempt to reach the pole. Now the tortuous Trail pa.s.sed through snow-wreaths which the winds had eddied into indentations; then over bright, gla.s.sy surfaces of ice and fragments of rocks, until the pinnacle was reached. Nearer, along the broad successive terraces of the opposite mountains, the evergreen pine, the cedar, with its stiff, angular branches, and the cottonwood, with its varied curves and bright colours, were crowded into bunches or strung into zigzag lines, interspersed with shrubs and mountain plants, among which the flaming cactus was conspicuous. To the right and left, the bare cones of the barren peaks rose in mult.i.tude, with their calm, awful forms shrouded in snow, and their dark shadows reflected far into the valleys, like spectres from a chaotic world.

In going through the Raton Pa.s.s, the Old Santa Fe Trail meandered up a steep valley, enclosed on either side by abrupt hills covered with pine and ma.s.ses of gray rock. The road ran along the points of varying elevations, now in the stony bed of Raton Creek, which it crossed fifty-three times, the sparkling, flitting waters of the bubbling stream leaping and foaming against the animals' feet as they hauled the great wagons of the freight caravans over the tortuous pa.s.sage. The creek often rushed rapidly under large flat stones, lost to sight for a moment, then reappearing with a fresh impetus and das.h.i.+ng over its flinty, uneven bed until it mingled with the pure waters of Le Purgatoire.

Still ascending, the scenery a.s.sumed a bolder, rougher cast; then sudden turns gave you hurried glimpses of the great valley below. A gentle dell sloped to the summit of the pa.s.s on the west, then, rising on the east by a succession of terraces, the bald, bare cliff was reached, overlooking the whole region for many miles, and this is Raton Peak.[74]

The extreme top of this famous peak was only reached after more than an hour's arduous struggle. On the lofty plateau the caravans and pack-trains rested their tired animals. Here, too, the lonely trapper, when crossing the range in quest of beaver, often chose this lofty spot on which to kindle his little fire and broil juicy steaks of the black-tail deer, the finest venison in the world; but before he indulged in the savoury morsels, if he was in the least superst.i.tious or devout, or inspired by the sublime scene around him, he lighted his pipe, and after saluting the elevated ridge on which he sat by the first whiff of the fragrant kinnikinick, Indian-fas.h.i.+on, he in turn offered homage in the same manner to the sky above him, the earth beneath, and to the cardinal points of the compa.s.s, and was then prepared to eat his solitary meal in a spirit of thankfulness.

Far below this magnificent vantage-ground lies the valley of the Rio Las Animas Perdidas. On the other verge of the great depression rise the peerless, everlastingly snow-wreathed Spanish Peaks,[75] whose giant summits are grim sentinels that for untold ages have witnessed hundreds of sanguinary conflicts between the wily nomads of the vast plains watered by the silent Arkansas.

All around you snow-clad mountains lift their serrated crowns above the horizon, dim, white, and indistinct, like icebergs seen at sea by moonlight; others, nearer, more rugged, naked of verdure, and irregular in contour, seem to lose their lofty summits in the intense blue of the sky.

Fisher's Peak, which is in full view from the train, was named from the following circ.u.mstance: Captain Fisher was a German artillery officer commanding a battery in General Kearney's Army of the West in the conquest of New Mexico and was encamped at the base of the peak to which he involuntarily gave his name. He was intently gazing at the lofty summit wrapped in the early mist, and not being familiar with the illusory atmospheric effects of the region, he thought that to go there would be merely a pleasant promenade. So, leaving word that he would return to breakfast, he struck out at a brisk walk for the crest. That whole day, the following night, and the succeeding day, dragged their weary hours on, but no tidings of the commanding officer were received at the battery, and ill rumours were current of his death by Indians or bears, when, just as his mess were about to take their seats at the table for the evening meal, their captain put in an appearance, a very tired but a wiser man. He started to go to the peak, and he went there!

On the summit of another rock-ribbed elevation close by, the tourist will notice the shaft of an obelisk. It is over the grave of George Simpson, once a noted mountaineer in the days of the great fur companies. For a long time he made his home there, and it was his dying request that the lofty peak he loved so well while living should be his last resting-place. The peak is known as "Simpson's Rest," and is one of the notable features of the rugged landscape.

Pike's Peak, far away to the north, intensely white and silvery in the clear sky, hangs like a great dome high in the region of the clouds, a marked object, worthy to commemorate the indefatigable efforts of the early voyageur whose name it bears.

In this wonderful locality, both Pike's Peak and the snowy range over two hundred miles from our point of observation really seem to the uninitiated as if a brisk walk of an hour or two would enable one to reach them, so deceptive is the atmosphere of these elevated regions.

About two miles from the crest of the range, yet over seven thousand feet above the sea-level, in a pretty little depression about as large as a medium-sized corn-field in the Eastern States, Uncle d.i.c.k Wooton lived, and here, too, was his toll-gate. The veteran mountaineer erected a substantial house of adobe, after the style of one of the old-time Southern plantation residences, a memory, perhaps, of his youth, when he raised tobacco in his father's fields in Kentucky.[76]

The most charming hour in which to be on the crest of Raton Range is in the afternoon, when the weather is clear and calm. As the night comes on apace in the distant valley beneath, the evening shadows drop down, pencilled with broad bands of rosy light as they creep slowly across the beautiful landscape, while the rugged vista below is enveloped in a diffused haze like that which marks the season of the Indian summer in the lower great plains. Above, the sky curves toward the relatively restricted horizon, with not a cloud to dim its intense blue, nowhere so beautiful as in these lofty alt.i.tudes.

The sun, however, does not always s.h.i.+ne resplendently; there are times when the most terrific storms of wind, hail, and rain change the entire aspect of the scene. Fortunately, these violent bursts never last long; they vanish as rapidly as they come, leaving in their wake the most phenomenally beautiful rainbows, whose trailing splendours which they owe to the dry and rare air of the region, and its high refractory power, are gorgeous in the extreme.

In 1872 the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad entered the valley of the Upper Arkansas. Twenty-four years ago, on a delicious October afternoon, I stood on the absolutely level plateau at the mouth of p.a.w.nee Fork where that historic creek debouches into the great river.

The remembrance of that view will never pa.s.s from my memory, for it showed a curious temporary blending of two distinct civilizations. One, the new, marking the course of empire in its restless march westward; the other, that of the aboriginal, which, like a dissolving view, was soon to fade away and be forgotten.

The box-elders and cottonwoods thinly covering the creek-bottom were gradually donning their autumn dress of russet, and the mirage had already commenced its fantastic play with the landscape. On the sides and crests of the spa.r.s.ely gra.s.sed sand hills south of the Arkansas a few buffaloes were grazing in company with hundreds of Texas cattle, while in the broad valley beneath, small flocks of graceful antelope were lying down, quietly ruminating their midday meal.

In the distance, far eastwardly, a train of cars could be seen approaching; as far as the eye could reach, on either side of the track, the virgin sod had been turned to the sun; the "empire of the plough"

was established, and the march of immigration in its hunger for the horizon had begun.

Half a mile away from the bridge spanning the Fork, under the grateful shade of the largest trees, about twenty skin lodges were irregularly grouped; on the brown sod of the sun-cured gra.s.s a herd of a hundred ponies were lazily feeding, while a troop of dusky little children were chasing the yellow b.u.t.terflies from the dried and withered sunflower stalks which once so conspicuously marked the well-worn highway to the mountains. These Indians, the remnant of a tribe powerful in the years of savage sovereignty, were on their way, in charge of their agent, to their new homes, on the reservation just allotted to them by the government, a hundred miles south of the Arkansas.

Their primitive lodges contrasted strangely with the peaceful little sod-houses, dugouts, and white cottages of the incoming settlers on the public lands, with the villages struggling into existence, and above all with the rapidly moving cars; unmistakable evidences that the new civilization was soon to sweep the red men before it like chaff before the wind.

Farther to the west, a caravan of white-covered wagons loaded with supplies for some remote military post, the last that would ever travel the Old Trail, was slowly crawling toward the setting sun. I watched it until only a cloud of dust marked its place low down on the horizon, and it was soon lost sight of in the purple mist that was rapidly overspreading the far-reaching prairie.

It was the beginning of the end; on the 9th of February, 1880, the first train over the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad arrived at Santa Fe and the Old Trail as a route of commerce was closed forever. The once great highway is now only a picture in the memory of the few who have travelled its weary course, following the windings of the silent Arkansas, on to the portals that guard the rugged pathway leading to the sh.o.r.es of the blue Pacific.