Dalles of the St. Croix, September 8, 1880.
Yesterday we steamed up this beautiful river from Stillwater, and as I write, our boat is moored at the head of navigation, with the mighty, perpendicular walls of the St. Croix, shutting in the grassy waters below, while a hundred yards above us the foaming torrent is dashing against the invincible fortress of smooth, moss-grown rocks, with here and there a somber pine or graceful spruce clinging to a jutting shelf midway between the clear, calm sky above and the roaring, angry flood beneath.
Most every one has heard of the wonderful Dalles of the St. Croix. They are not, however, the sole feature of the locality entitled to notice. I consider the entire picture between Stillwater and the Falls one of surpassing loveliness. At this season of the year, the high, gray walls on either side of the lake and river are clad in garments of green and gold, which mock the pen of the poet, and strike the beholder dumb, as he stands in the royal presence of autumn.
The deep green of the stately pine, stands side by side with the golden glory of the poplar, and here and there the brazen billows and royal coloring of maple and oak, the hectic flush upon the features of the dving year, are spread out between the silent sky and the sandy beach; while softly mirrored in the glassy waters, the whole broad picture colored by a mighty, master hand, and with the myriad dyes from Nature's inexhaustible laboratory lies repeated, the echo of a thrilling vision.
There are two rival steamers plying on the Upper St. Croix. I do not remember their names, because they charged me full fare both ways. I can see that my memory is failing a little every day, and I am getting more and more prone to forget those who do not recognize my innate and spontaneous greatness at a glance, and extend the usual courtesies.
When we came down we towed a wheat barge loaded with 21,000 bushels of wheat, and it was pretty difficult most of the way.
The opposition boat went up the night before, and had taken up the water with a blotting-paper, so that every little while I had to roll up my pants about nine feet, and go out into the channel, and luff up on the starboard watch of the barge with a jenny pole and bring her to, so that she could find moisture.
Then I had a good deal of fun going ashore after ferns when the boat was aground. While the crew went aft and close-reefed the smoke-stack and hauled abaft the top-gallant, or side-tracked the wheat barge, my wife would send me ashore to gather maiden-hair ferns, and soft, velvety mosses, and sad, yearnful wood-ticks. O how I love to crawl around through the underbrush, and tear my clothes, and wilt my collar, and gather samples of lichens, and ferns and baled hay and caterpillars to decorate my Western home.
At first I thought I would not mention the little domestic cloud that has shot athwart my sky, but I cannot smother it in my own breast any longer.
St. Croix Falls is on the Wisconsin side of the river and Taylor's Falls on the Minnesota side. They are connected by a toll-bridge which charges you one and a half cents each, way for passage. One can stand halfway across this bridge and see up and down the river, with the Devil's Arm Chair at his right and the Dalles at his left. After supper I took a couple of friends down to the bridge and without Jetting them know the treat that I had in store for them, I went up to the gate-keeper and paid for all three of us both ways. Then I told them to enjoy themselves. It was a novel treat perhaps to throw open a toll-bridge to the enjoyment of one's friends, but I did it with that utter disregard of expense which has characterized my mining developments in the Rocky Mountains.
Then I took the boys over across the river and gave them the freedom of St. Croix Falls.
Jutting out into the river south of Osceola, is a high, rocky promontory called Cedar Point. Lonely and proud like a sentinel of the forgotten past, there stands a tall cedar tree on this natural battlement, devoid of foliage for some distance up the trunk.
This tree was the old mark that stood upon the dividing line between the Chippewa and Sioux territory. Below it, in the water-worn rock, is a large semi-circle, made by the action of the river, and this it was stated had been the footprint of the horse upon which the Great Spirit had ridden across the stream when he drew the line between these two mighty nations, and set the tree upon it to show his children the boundary between their respective territories. This was the Indian Mason and Dixon's line.
What a wild, weird suggestion of the crude legislation and amateur statesmanship of these two nations rises up before me as I write, and how I yearn to go into the details and try to enter the free-for-all contest and match a bob-tail Caucasian lie against these moss-grown prevarications of the red-man.
At Stillwater, my first wild impulse was to visit the State Penitentiary.
When I go into a new place I register my name at the most expensive hotel, and after visiting the newspaper offices I hunt up the penitentiary, if there be one, and if not, I go to the cooler. I do not go there under duress, as the facetious reader might suggest, but I go there voluntarily to see how the criminal business of the place is looking.
We went to the warden's office, and talked with him a little while, showed him that we were not loaded with giant powder and cross-cut saws, and then we were placed in charge of an usher, and sent through the building to view the mighty manufacturing interests that are carried on inside, where the striped criminals silently and doggedly are moving about at their varied occupations.
After awhile I got gloomy and began to whistle one of my tearful refrains in G. The usher told me to please put up my whistle, and I did so, partly to gratify him and partly because he had a temporary advantage over me. Most every one who has heard me whistle seems glad that his lines have fallen in such pleasant places; but this man, as I afterward learned, did not know the first principle of music. He groped along through life without knowing the difference between a symphony in B, and the low, sad song of the twilight cat.
Pretty soon we came to three men whose faces attracted my attention.
They were the Younger brothers. Their faces were easy of identification from the resemblance to wood cuts published at the time of their capture. I stood silently looking at them for some time.
Their countenances are a study for the reader of human character. Sullen, grim and depraved, they impress the beholder with their utter scorn for the laws and usages of the land. I asked the usher if I guessed right; but he turned away and told me it was against the rules of the institution to point out any one to visitors, or identify the convicts in any way. Then I knew that I was right, because he was so reserved.
I gave one of the men my card and entered into a conversation with him. It wasn't much of a conversation, however, because the usher broke in on me, and shut me off, as it were.
The description that I have given of the Younger brothers in this letter is not over full, owing partly to the fact that the usher wouldn't let me be as sociable with them as I wanted to be; and partly because I afterward discovered, casually, that they were not the Younger brothers.
Speaking of convicts reminds me of my experience with a poor, ignorant man at Laramie—the creature of circumstances—who was sentenced to three years in the Territorial penitentiary, for stealing a pair of flea-bitten bronchos. He was convicted mainly on the testimony of a man, who was afterward sent up for the same offence, and it was the general belief that the first-named man was entirely innocent. He was trusted about the penitentiary at all times, and allowed to go outside the walls without guard, but never betrayed the trust reposed in him.
I went to him and talked with him. His spirits and health were broken, and he told me, with tears in his eyes, that he hoped only for a merciful death to end his sufferings. While acting as guard to a party of convicts outside one day, they fell upon him and nearly killed him with a huge stone, and then leaving him bleeding and insensible.
He could not tell of his sufferings without crying. I undertook to enlist sympathy for him, and when I told his tale of misfortune to the governor and authorities in that thrilling way of mine, I had no difficulty in securing his pardon.
He came to my office and sobbed out his gratitude till I told him it was of no consequence, and begged him not to mention it, although it was the proudest moment of my life. He went to work for a citizen of Laramie, with the old, industrious, patient air, and I pointed him out with pride to my friends as a man whom I had rescued and brought back to a useful life.
One morning, however, before the pale dawn had streaked the eastern sky he took his employer's team and what money there was in the house and struck out for the Gunnison country. He did not know anything about mining, but he had such implicit confidence in himself that he started out alone and without letters of introduction to leading men in that country. It was a good thing that he did have perfect confidence in himself, for no one else had much confidence in him after that.
During that day a good many of my friends came around to see me. I didn't know I had so many friends. They all seemed to be in first-rate spirits. They seemed glad to see me, and laughed a good deal. Sometimes I couldn't see what they were laughing at, for my horizon was shrouded in gloom. It don't take much to make some people laugh.
I have never felt perfectly at ease with Governor Thayer since that. I know that he regards me as a confederate with that man, and he thinks that I got part of the money realized from the sale of that team, but I didn't. If it were the last statement I should make on earth I would still say?
As Heaven is my witness, that I have never realized a single dollar from the sale of that team.