CROSSING THE PLAINS.
I left Fairbury, Livingston county, Illinois, March 4, 1864, in company with James Gibb, John Jackson, James Martin, and Sam Dempster and wife, destined for the new gold fields in Idaho, for the Territory of Montana had not then been created.
Our mode of traveling was with a four-horse team and a farm wagon. A great portion of Illinois and Iowa was then but sparsely settled; we would travel for hours without seeing any signs of habitation. The roads were very bad through those states; and it took us twenty-five days to come to Council Bluffs, which was then but a small frontier settlement. An old man, one of the inhabitants of the place, called my attention to two small hills on the bluff above the village and said: “It was there General Fremont, with his men, held a council before crossing the river to traverse the plains to California, and from this incident the town derives its name.” We crossed the Missouri on a ferry boat. Omaha had scarcely twelve hundred people. Here we made up a train of sixty-five wagons, some drawn by oxen. It was a mixed train as far as the destination was concerned. Some were going to California, Oregon, Washington, and Salt Lake, but mostly to the new gold diggings in Idaho. We were to travel together as far as Utah.
Our trail was on the north side of the North Platte river as far as Fort Laramie, following most of the way the surveying stakes on the line of the Union Pacific Railway. For several hundred miles, while we traveled in the Platte river valley, we passed over fine land for agriculture. Here we met a great many Indians of the Pawnee tribe, but all appeared to be friendly. I was approached by one of them, who came and asked me to give him some coffee; he was over six feet tall, and had a very large bow and arrows. I made a mark on a big cottonwood tree and stepped off fifty paces and told him if he put an arrow in that mark I would give him some coffee. At once he began sending his arrows, every one piercing the tree about two inches in depth, and the fourth one into the center of the mark. I gave him his coffee. On another occasion I put my hat on a bunch of sage brush for two Indian boys to shoot at for a piece of bread; the next thing I knew there was an arrow through my hat. Several days, when traveling in this valley, not a stick of timber of any kind could be had; the only fuel we could obtain was buffalo chips which were abundant.
The mail carrier told us that after passing a place called “Pawnee Swamp,” which was about fifty miles west of Fort Kearney, we would be in the Cheyenne and Sioux country, and that those Indians were very hostile to the whites. It was two days after we crossed this line before we saw an Indian. The third morning at day break, when I was on guard, I discovered one from a distance who was coming towards our camp. I kept watching him; finally he came to me and spoke, at the same time making signs; of course I did not understand either. While going on with his gibberish and making those motions with his hands he stepped up and patted me on the breast and on my vest pocket. I told him in plain English that he was getting a little too familiar for a stranger, and to keep away from me. Then he picked up a stem of some dried weed about the size of a match and scratched it on a stone as a person would when lighting a match. This convinced me that he wanted some matches. I gave him half a dozen and he thanked me, or at least I thought he did, for he gave a kind of grunt with a faint smile and went back in the direction he came from.
In the afternoon of the same day we crossed a small creek; on its bank there was a newly made grave in which a young woman twenty-two years of age had been laid to rest. At the head of the grave, for a head-board, a round stick, which had been used at one time for a picket pin, was placed, and on this some unskilled hand had written with a pencil “In memory of ——,” the name I could not decipher, but the words “dear daughter” were plainly written, which indicated that there was a parent present to kiss her marble brow before it was lowered into the silent tomb. This instance made a deep impression on me then when viewing that lonely grave in the heart of the wilderness and thinking of its occupant, who possibly was once the center star in some lovable family, but was left there alone in her earthen couch to sleep and rest forever; and when, on the coming of spring, no one would be there to even pluck wild flowers and lay them on the grave of the unfortunate young traveler. What more sorrowful sight could there be than witnessing those parents leaving that sacred spot before continuing their westward journey, and, when on that ridge, taking the last look at the little mound by the winding brook in the valley below? Here the curtain drops on this pitiful scene; the emigrant train is out of sight and all is over.
At Fort Laramie we met the noted frontiersman, John Bozeman, after whom the city of Bozeman, Montana, was named. He sought to organize a train to take a cut-off route east of the Big Horn mountains. There was also a man by the name of McKnight, who was a trader at this place. He had two wagons loaded with goods for Alder Gulch, each wagon being drawn by four fine mules, and he was getting up a train to go west of the Big Horn mountains and through the Wind River country. McKnight said to me that he wanted about one hundred wagons and about five hundred good, resolute, determined men and they would get through all right. I told him that there were five of us, and that we would accompany him. There were scores of wagons passing Laramie every day and most of them were bound for the new gold diggings.
The first day we got twenty wagons to join the McKnight train, and we pulled out about a quarter of a mile in the direction we were to travel. This new camp was a kind of “refinery;” here one and all might consider the perils, dangers and privations likely to be encountered. The faint-hearted ones took the safer route by way of the South Pass. However, in a few days we had four hundred and fifty men and over one hundred wagons. We were aware that we were going to travel through several hundred miles of an untrodden wilderness, where Red Cloud and Sitting Bull reigned over twenty or twenty-five thousand savages, so it was very necessary for us to be well armed and organized. Before starting we took a vote and selected a captain and two lieutenants, and a committee of three to examine every one and see if he was prepared with guns, sufficient ammunition, and if his outfit was substantial enough to make the trip. A paper was drawn in which was inserted a provision that we were to stand by and defend each other at all hazards; to this we all signed our names. We realized that it was a perilous undertaking, but we pressed onward. We depended a great deal on our guide. He was a tall, well-built, straight, dark-complexioned, resolute and intelligent man; he was reared in Canada and had been in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was a famous scout and versed in the language of every Indian tribe from the Platte to the Saskatchewan, and was both feared and respected by all. He was a brave and true man, whose tact and courage, on more than one occasion, resulted in avoiding trouble with hostile redskins.
Roll was called every evening. Each man had to be on guard in his turn for four consecutive hours during the night. To form the camp the first wagon had to make a circle until it faced the hindmost one, and each one followed forming thus a stockade, the horses being driven past the inside hind wheel of the wagon in front; after unhitching the tongue was thrown over the wheel and rested on the axle. At night all the horses and the tents were on the inside and those standing guard being on the outside. We invariably formed our camp in this way, and were always on our guard, for no man can tell when danger may be near in an Indian country. When there is not an Indian to be seen it is the time they are the most likely to make an attack. An incident I well remember. The writer and Gibb were ahead of the train and about half a mile on one side from the direction we were traveling. Crossing a small ravine we saw two Indians hiding under some willows. They pretended not to see us. It is probable that there were many more in that vicinity, although there was no indication of the kind.
One day we came through a Sioux village of eighty-five tepees; there were from two to three hundred Indians, chiefly women and children. On a slope of a hill near by were over eight hundred horses in charge of six Indians. Though we camped at noon but a short distance from them, only two approached us, and their actions were different from those of the other Indians whom we met. When the Sioux came to our camp they would go from one tent or wagon to another in a sullen manner with a contemptible look as if they were going to massacre every one of us, and likely the reason they did not was that we had taken them unawares and before they had time to prepare, besides we were as good as an equal number of soldiers if it had come to fighting. But by the year following they were better prepared, for they had obtained guns and ammunition from the traders. They killed many immigrants. And the year succeeding traveling through that part of the Sioux country was entirely discontinued, and Fort Phil Kearney was established. A few months later all the soldiers, eighty-one in number, were killed by the Indians—not one was left to tell the story. And, these savages kept up their murderous deeds until the Sioux war of 1876.
Many times I thought of the perils and dangers that we escaped on that eventful journey, of which I now give an account.
It was against the rules of our camp for any one to kindle a fire after dark. The object was to prevent the Indians from locating us at night. We were obliged to camp where an abundance of water could be obtained. A small spring would not meet our requirements, for we had nearly three hundred horses, sometimes we had to make long drives to the next stream or a place where there was plenty of water. Other times we had to stop, from early noon until next day, for we could not make the drive in one afternoon. For the balance of the day we frequently had considerable sport by playing several games, shooting at a mark, short and long distance jumping, wrestling and foot racing; but as the journey grew longer the contraction of the muscles put a stop to the latter three. On one of those long evenings we saw a torch light at the base of a mountain not far off. It was swung back and forth for several minutes. It was an Indian sign, and that put a stop to all games for that evening. We looked for trouble that night, but had none. We were all happy and had no sickness on that trip. There were six or seven men from the southern part of Illinois who had the ague at the time they joined the party, but as we came nearer to the mountains all traces of it disappeared and returned no more. It was hard for us to secure game of any kind, for the Indians kept driving it away as we went, and it was not prudent for us to venture far from the course we were pursuing to look for any. We saw many deer and buffaloes, but they were a long ways off; occasionally we would get some of the smaller game. We traversed much good grazing land where water was plenty; also many valleys with rich lands for farming and an abundance of good timber.
MY FIRST VIEW OF THE ROCKIES.
The atmosphere was very clear when we first saw the Rocky mountains. They were several hundred miles distant; an old Californian pointed them out. They appeared to be of immense height and it was difficult to convince many of us that they were mountains, for they looked more like thunder clouds to us who came from the prairie states. Every day brought us nearer, and soon the perpetual snow was visible, then the green pines and the rocky cliffs above the timber line, where no vegetation exists, were plain to be seen, and, as I gazed at those high rocky peaks, reaching above the clouds, it was plain to see why the Rocky mountains were called “The Rockies.”
It did not take many days to skirt those lofty mountains and wind our way through their canyons, listening to the rebounding echo of our wagons rattling over the rocks and boulders as we went.
In one of those narrow valleys in the mountains we camped one June day for dinner. Trout was abundant in the creek. On both sides there was a dense growth of pine. Thinking that it was a good place to look for deer, I took my gun and climbed the mountain side until I reached where the land was almost level. After I had gone about a mile, I arrived at an opening in the woods; two or three hundred yards away I saw a large brown bear and elevating my gun I took aim at the big brute; just then a second thought came to me, and I said to myself: “If I kill it, all well and good; if I only wound it I’ll get the worst of it.” I paused for a minute, looking at the bear, and the longer I looked the larger it seemed; the bear stood and looked at me, and finally he walked away slowly, occasionally looking back. I was walking as the bear did, only in the opposite direction. Soon the bear stopped and faced towards me and I made a bee-line for the camp, for I was not looking for that kind of game that day.
We frequently passed trees in the branches of which a dead Indian was placed on a kind of scaffold eight or ten feet above the ground. This place of burial was constructed of poles and branches of trees tied together with strips of rawhide. The remains were carefully wrapped in beaded and painted robes, in Indian fashion, and secured with rawhide ropes to the scaffold. Thus the dead Indian rested, high and dry, on his sacred roost until his gorgeous couch was destroyed by the elements and his bones picked by birds of prey. We also passed several scaffolds built on four forked stakes, on which remains of Indians were placed, and wrapped in the same manner as those on the trees.
Very often some aged Indians would visit our camps and go from one tent to another and peep in as if they were counting to ascertain how many there were. We treated them kindly and gave them something to eat; they always asked for matches and were very fond of tobacco. Our guide warned us that they were spies and for us to have our guns in a conspicuous place so they could see our strength. We had many obstacles to contend with on our journey. One day we had to travel forty miles without water. It was very hot; many of the horses giving out, their tongues being swollen until they protruded from their mouths. At another time we had to let the wagons down the mountain with ropes, with the hind wheels locked; and we had to cross rivers on rafts and wagon boxes; again fording streams where there was great danger of being taken down by the surging waters. Four of our men came very near losing their lives in this way; but being good swimmers they avoided drowning. We crossed the Powder, Clark’s Fork, Rosebud and Yellowstone rivers and many other streams. The first we came to were very high, for at that time the snows were melting off the mountains.
AN INDIAN GRAVE.
Upon reaching the Rosebud we pitched our tents and camped till the next morning. It was in the latter part of June; the trees and shrubs were in full foliage and the wild flowers perfumed the air. The Rosebud is one of the prettiest rivers I ever saw; like all mountain streams the current is swift and its water as clear as crystal. Its beds are inlaid with pebbles of all imaginable colors, with occasional large boulders, where the speckled trout hides as one approaches the water’s edge. Along its banks are groves of ancient trees, with underbrush of many varieties and wild roses in great profusion. The bottom lands for miles are but nature’s meadows, while the rolling hills, as far as the eye can see, are a vast pasture land dotted here and there with clumps of timber. Although away from civilization, the small birds flutter among the branches, singing their sweet songs with as tender cadence as if in somebody’s front yard in the civilized East. The same can be said of nearly all of the streams and valleys that we crossed and came through on our journey. On first view of these beautiful landscapes a person would think that some prehistoric race had cultivated these fertile valleys and planted those ancient trees and groves that grew as uniform as if the ground had been laid out by some expert landscape gardener. On further observation, we could see high, tempest tortured towers of grand masonry work, which had withstood the elements for ages. All is but the handiwork of nature, directed by the Great Architect of the Universe.
IN THE ROCKIES.
NATURE’S GRAND MASONRY WORK.
When in the Yellowstone valley we saw from a distance a party of Indians all mounted and coming towards us. Our captain at once gave orders to form into a camp, and, before the Indians got near, we were formed into a stockade and ready for battle, if necessary. As the Indians approached our guide stepped forward about two hundred yards to meet them. They were eighty-five in number. Then they whipped their horses to greater speed and began yelling. When within about two hundred yards of him, he lifted his hand and the Indians stopped as if they were shot. The chief of the party and our guide had a sign talk for a few minutes; the chief came forward and stated that they were “Crows” and he wished to know who we were. He was informed who we were and where we were going. They talked for about ten minutes, then the balance of the Indians came forward and were invited to come to our camp. They were mounted on good horses and had on their war paint and all were stripped to their waists. We gave them bread and coffee and took a smoke with them. Smoking with an Indian signifies that he is friendly. They all left very peaceably and never came back. They were the last Indians we saw until we got to Alder Creek.
Some distance after crossing the Yellowstone river the writer and two others were considerably ahead of the wagons and crossing our course was a ripple of clear water. The sun was hot and the effect of the heat made us thirsty. All three, nearly at the same time, got down to quench their thirst with the sparkling water. The first one cries at the top of his voice: “My God, it is hot;” the second remarked: “Well, boys, we must be near to the jumping-off place,” while the third thought that we were getting near to the infernal regions. However, it was a great wonder to us, for this was the first hot spring that we had ever seen.
This spring is to-day the renowned Hunter Hot Springs, a place of resort for its mineral properties, where hundreds of people are treated every year for rheumatism and kindred diseases. It has fine hotel accommodations and all modern conveniences and improvements for the comfort of its patrons. What was “then” but a ripple of hot water is “now” a Western Saratoga.
After a journey of two thousand miles over plains and sandy deserts, up the hills and down the canyons, crossing rivers and through many beautiful valleys, fatigued by much suffering, hardships and dangers, we arrived in Alder Gulch July 13, 1864. We found it to be a great camp, and were told how many dollars to the pan and how rich the mines were, and of the “road agents” robbing and killing people; of the organization of the vigilance committee and the good work they were doing by hanging the desperadoes, and suppressing lawlessness. Not until we arrived did we learn of the organization of the Territory of Montana, for it was completed May 26th, while we were in the wilderness. Truly, Montana “then” was but an infant in its cradle.
Robert Vaughn.
Feb. 11, 1898.