CHAPTER XX.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
We now reached open plains, where only here and there an isolated musquito tree or a thickly foliaged elm offers a little shade on the boundless glowing surface, and the sky forms the horizon all around. To these single shady trees the deer and antelopes fly in the midday heat, and lie down close together, so that you may be always certain to find game under these trees, so long as their leaves are standing. At the same season the grass is high also, and it is easy for the hunter to creep unseen within shot, and shoot the fattest deer through the head. Even at the time of our visit, when the leaves had fallen, these animals frequently reposed under the scattered trees and rose as we passed, forty or fifty in number, gazing anxiously at us. The buffalo, on the other hand, always remains in the sunshine, and seems able to endure the greatest heat, but also the greatest cold before all other quadrupeds. It marks its endless marches from north to south and from south to north by its skeletons, which bleach for many a year in the sun. Now, when the grass was short, the whole surface in the distance had a whitish tinge, which is produced by these bones, out of which the skulls rise like shining dots. For about a week we rode through such land, only here and there interrupted by small elevations, and frequently suffered with our animals from drought. During this period we were often obliged to quench our thirst with standing water, with which the heavy showers fill great hollows in the prairies, and which remains in them even at the driest season. As the inhabitants of these plains, and especially the buffaloes, must also quench their thirst in them, and also wallow there, we frequently found the water as thick and warm as chocolate, and were obliged to strain it through a cloth to get rid of the hairs before we could drink it.
After a very hot day, on which we had suffered greatly from thirst, we suddenly saw from a knoll a large expanse of water before us, and greeted it at the first moment with great delight. We hurried on in order to reach this oasis as soon as possible, but surprised to see no bushes or trees on its banks, and even more when on drawing nearer we found far around only thin, dark grass, between which the ground shone quite white. Tiger shouted to me that it was salt water, and neither we nor our horses could drink it. This affected us the more deeply as we had indulged in the hope of a hearty drink, and we silently turned again to the west, in order to ride round the lake. Tiger laughed and said that we should have good water, as several large streams flowed into it from the west. This proved to be the case; for after riding about five miles along the bank of the lake, we reached a perfectly clear, sweet-water stream. We halted in order to refresh ourselves and our cattle, but we were obliged, as was the case nearly the whole week, to kindle a fire of bois de vache, to prepare our supper. At times, when in passing over these prairies we found a dry musquito tree, we fastened a few logs to our saddle, so as to have firing for the evening; but this was too tiring, and we always hoped to come across wood, whence this precaution was generally neglected. In such regions there were no objects to which we could bind our horses; but this is easily managed by cutting a long, sharp wedge out of the very firm soil, thrusting the knot of the lasso in as far as possible and stamping in the wedge again with the foot. As the bound animal pulls almost horizontally at the very long lasso, while its end goes down nearly perpendicularly into the ground, the rope offers such a resistance that it will sooner break than be pulled out of the ground.
Gradually we saw more hills, and among them forests, while a few distant chains of mountains ran from west to east. One afternoon I was riding with Tiger about a mile ahead of our party, in order to have a better chance of approaching game, when we heard two shots behind us. We looked round and saw our friends gathered in a knot on a small knoll, and a swarm of about fifty Indians galloping round them. We gave our horses the spurs and flew back to them, while Tiger raised a hideous yell, in which I supported him to the best of my strength. Our friends now fired a general salvo at the assailants, which knocked over two horses, but their riders were immediately picked up by their comrades. On seeing us the savages took to flight with gruesome yells. We rode up to our companions, who had placed all the animals in the centre to protect them. Königstein had luckily seen some horses' heads over the crest of the next hill which aroused his suspicions, and had employed the time in assuming a posture of defence, or else we should probably have lost our mules. Tiger saw, from the saddles of the shot horses, that they belonged to the Mescaleros, who are considered the most savage tribe in the west, and would certainly not have given up their attack so soon had they not recognised Tiger's war-whoop as that of the Delawares. The number of Mescaleros is not large, and they are constantly at war with many other tribes, so that they do not care to make fresh enemies among their red brothers. This little danger, which we escaped without loss, was not unpleasing to me, as our precautions, which had nearly been forgotten, were aroused once more by it.
For about a week we marched through a very pleasant country, and arrived at a rather large river, which Tiger stated to be the Brazos, and which falls into the gulf to the eastward of the Colorado. I had seen it before at San Felipe, and would not have recognised it, for there it moves sluggishly through a thick-wooded bed of heavy clay, and has a dirty red colour, while here it rolls merrily over rocks, and its crystal surface is covered with a snow-white foam. From this point we proceeded to the north-west, as Tiger noticed that we had gone a little too far east, and would have much greater difficulty in crossing the rivers than farther west, where, though the country is mountainous, the streams nearer their sources are smaller and more frequent. The mountains were composed of limestone, and contained exquisite little valleys, where the vegetation was already bursting into new life. All the softer-wooded trees were budding, and the flowers were springing up all over the prairies. We seemed to keep equal pace with the reawakening of the vegetable world northwards, and even to go faster than it.
On a warm day we had been riding without a halt over desolate, stony hills, and were quite exhausted. When our tired and thirsty horses clambered up a barren height, we suddenly looked down into a lovely valley covered with fresh verdure, through which a broad stream wound. The view soon enlivened horse and rider, and we merrily hurried down to the bank of the stream. We had hardly reached it and ridden our horses in to let them quench their thirst, when a long train of Indians appeared on the opposite height bordering the valley and came straight toward us. Tiger looked at them for a moment, and told us to wait here while he rode across to see who they were. We dismounted, led our horses together, and got our weapons in readiness. Tiger galloped through the valley to the hill side down which the Indians were coming, and checked his piebald at its foot. We saw him making signs from a distance to the approaching horsemen, which were answered in the same way, and ere long the whole party pulled up around him. They held a long consultation and then rode toward us with Tiger at their head. They were Kickapoos out on a hunting expedition, and had recently left their villages on the Platte, where they have settlements like the Delawares, and their squaws and old men grow crops and breed cattle.
I had a long conversation with the chief, in which Tiger played the interpreter, told him the purpose of our journey, invited him to visit me on the Leone next winter, and asked him how far it was to the next water. He assured me that we should come to good water and grass before the sun sank behind the mountains, and so we parted, very glad to get away from the fellows, whose appearance was anything but satisfactory. The party consisted of about eighty men, twenty squaws, and a number of small children. The first were dressed in deer-hide breech-clouts, and had round the body a leathern belt, through which a very long and broad strip of coarse red cloth was passed, whose two ends were pulled through between the legs and fastened into the belt behind. In addition, several of them had deerskin coats, others calico coats, but the majority merely wore a buffalo robe over their bare shoulders, and nearly all were armed with rifles. The squaws wore a short leathern petticoat round their loins, and a buffalo robe on their shoulders, while those who had infants carried them fastened to a board upon their backs. They had already unpacked their horses and prepared their camp to halt here, as we rode away from them over the hills, and Tiger came up to me, saying, "Kickapoo no good—two tongues." I had heard before that these Indians were false, spiteful, and hostile to white men, and only the advantage they derive from being on friendly terms with the United States induces them not to appear publicly as their enemies.
We quickly advanced, and reached at a rather early hour a valley in which we found grass and water, and chose our camp at a spot where the stream ran close under a precipice, while on this side was a small copse in which we could fasten our cattle at night. It was an almost circular kettle enclosed by steep limestone walls, which had an opening only on one side, through which the bright stream flowed. The sun was sinking behind the lofty gray rocks and dyeing the dark blue sky with a glowing tint which no artist would venture to reproduce on his canvas. About midnight Trusty aroused us by his loud savage bark: he was at the opening of the valley and would not lie down again, but we could not discover his motive, as it was quite dark. Tiger fancied, however, that the Kickapoos were trying to steal some of our horses. When day broke and cast its first faint light over the gray walls of the valley, I awoke and saw at the entrance a herd of deer apparently browsing down the stream. As it was still rather dark I hoped to be able to approach them behind the few leafless bushes that grew on the bank, as crawling through the dewy grass was too fatiguing a job to be rewarded by a deer, especially as we still had a supply of game.
OCELOTS HUNTING IN COUPLES. [[p. 243.]
I crept down the stream, and had got within shot, when I made a forward leap in order to reach a rather thick bush, from which I could fire more conveniently. At the same instant the deer started apart in terror, and I saw that an ocelot had leaped on the back of one of them, which laid back its broad antlers and galloped down the stream, while a second cat followed it with long high bounds. Two of the terrified deer darted past me, but I did not fire, as I felt an interest in watching the hunt of the two beasts of prey, which I followed as quickly as I could out of the valley. The deer ran about a mile down the stream, then reared and fell over backwards, when the second cat also sprang on it, and hung on its neck.
The deer collected its last strength and tried to rise on its hind legs, but sank exhausted and sent its plaintive cries echoing through the mountains. I crept, unseen by the beasts of prey, within thirty yards of the scene of battle, and shot the first, while I missed the second, as it bolted, but sent Trusty after it, and soon heard him at bay lower down the stream. I soon reloaded and hurried after Trusty, who was barking round a small oak in which the ocelot had sought shelter. I shot it down and dragged it up to the other, which was lying by the dead deer. All were up in our camp, as they had heard my shots, and John and Königstein hurried toward me to see what I had killed. My clothes were as wet as if I had been in the river, and I turned myself before our fire while the others went out with Jack to bring in the game. Higher north I did not come across these small leopards, while farther south they are very frequent.
For several days longer our road ran through mountains, which were bordered by savage precipices and crossed by grassy valleys; then we rode for some days across open, boundless prairies, and again reached low ranges of hills, between which we crossed the southern arm of Red River, which divides Texas from Arkansas and falls into the Mississippi in Arkansas, after flowing a distance of nearly one thousand miles. There it is of a dirty red, and muddy, and moves sluggishly between lofty poplars and planes which overshadow its flat banks, while the long gray grass hangs down from thence to the surface of the water and literally covers the trees. This moss hangs from every branch in creepers twenty feet long, and conceals the swampy soil in which those fearful monsters, the alligators, lie by thousands and await in their pestiferous lair the unhappy victims whom accident leads to them. Here and there a half-decayed blockhouse peeps out from under these weeping banners, and as everything there offers the picture of rapid desolation, you see in this house, where so many families have died out one after the other, the pale, yellow wasted faces of the new-comers peering out, like candidates for death, till it becomes too late to escape from this pestilential abode.
How perfectly different, however, the river appears here! Clear as crystal to the bottom, it dances from rock to rock; refreshes as it darts past the luxuriant ferns and the thousand-hued flowers with its waves, and displays to the visitor its living wealth, as well as the vegetable world on its bed, in the most brilliant hues. The purest, lightest breeze sports over its high banks and drives the diseases, which are the curse of South-Eastern America, out of the paradise which lies beneath the haughty cypresses, pecan nut-trees, planes, maples, and colossal oak-trees that border it. How is it possible that men can be terrified by the dangers of the West, and patiently expose themselves to a certain, slow, awful decay in those poisoned forests, where Death inexorably swings his scythe all the year round?
The Rocky Mountains now rose in the west, and glistened with their snowy peaks, while around us the plants announced spring by their bursting buds. We drew nearer to them, although in this way our route became far more fatiguing than farther eastward, where the wide prairies extend to the north. But Tiger employed this precaution in order to get out of the way of the great Indian hordes pursuing the buffalo, who do not find in these mountains sufficient food for their troops of horses and mules, and cannot hunt the buffaloes there so well as on the prairie. Hence our journey was continued more slowly; but at this season we could reckon on water, and the small valleys offered our few cattle abundance of food. The mountains constantly afforded us more game than we needed for our support, and we could approach it with greater ease than on the prairies.
We had been winding for some days through wildly romantic mountain gorges, and our eyes were involuntarily fixed on the distant reddish mountains which rose in the north toward the transparent sky. We had left many a charming valley, turbulent current, and precipice behind, when at about noon one day we were stopped by a deep ravine, through which noisily dashed one of those mountain torrents which escape from the snows of the Andes and make their long course through the valleys to the Gulf of Mexico. Here we could not think of riding through, for the precipices on either side were at least fifty feet deep, while the width of the cavern was several hundred paces. We rode up the ravine and got among such rocks and loose stones that we were forced to dismount, and with the greatest difficulty reached a plateau where the banks of the stream were not so tall and steep, and we were able to remount. A few flat rocks were scattered over the bank where we were, while the opposite one rose steeply, and was covered with thick scrub and low wood.
I was riding with Tiger ahead of our party when, on turning a rock, we saw a very plump bear leap from the bank through the shallow but foaming stream, and disappear in a coppice opposite. It was too quick to enable us to fire, and when we reached the spot where we first saw it, we found a large elk lying behind some thick prickly bushes, which was still warm, and hence must have been recently killed. One leg was torn up, but the rest was in good condition, and we halted to await our friends and put the game on the mules. When I was about to dismount, Tiger remarked that the bear would return to the elk in the evening, and as we should soon be obliged to camp, owing to the growing darkness, we could hunt it.
Our friends came up and we marched about a mile farther, where we found excellent grass in a gorge on the left of the river. We unsaddled, hobbled our cattle, and prepared supper, although it was rather early. The question then was who of us should go after the bear, and as all wished to do so we agreed that the dice should decide. The lot fell on myself, Clifton, and Königstein, and without delay we took our weapons and walked down the stream to the spot where the elk lay. We advanced cautiously, as the bear might already be at its quarry, and as we noticed nothing of it we selected our posts no great distance from the elk. I was at the centre, behind a large rock, Königstein lay on my right near the stream in the dry grass behind some bushes, and Clifton was on my left, covered by a fallen dead tree.
We had a good wind, and if the bear returned we should have it under our guns, and it would hardly be able to escape. We sat without moving: the sun sank behind the mountains and scarce illumined the heights, while around us the gloom was already gathering; there was not a breath of air, and only the buzzing and chirruping of insects and the rustling of the stream disturbed the silence. Trusty, who had hitherto been lying at my feet, raised his head, looked at the thicket opposite and then up to me. I shook my finger at him not to growl, which he quite understood, and thrust his head down on the ground. Directly after I heard a cracking in the thicket, which soon became more distinct. At length the bear burst out of the scrub and came down a small path to the stream. We had agreed not to fire until it reached the elk on this side. It stopped for a few minutes in the water to drink, then leapt from stone to stone up the bank, and walked slowly toward the elk. The bear had scarce reached the prickly bush ere we fired simultaneously, and it rolled over, but got up again and leapt into the water. Clifton and Königstein sent two bullets after it, which, however, did not seem to hurt it much, for it dashed ahead to the other bank. Königstein at once leapt, revolver in hand, into the stream after the bear, and was standing between it and me, when he put a bullet into its leg at a short distance. The bear, noticing its pursuer, turned and went toward him with a hoarse roar, while Königstein, still standing in the water, put a second bullet into its chest. I ran up and fired my rifle bullet into the left breast of the furious animal, while Clifton gave it another in the belly from his long pistol. The bear fell into the water but a few yards from Königstein, who, seeing it rise on its fore paws, shot it through the head with his revolver. Though the water was shallow, it was so rapid that it would have carried the bear away, so we both threw away our weapons, leapt into the stream to Königstein, and dragged the beast on land. Here we let it lie, reloaded, and returned to camp, where our comrades were, greatly pleased at the lucky result of our hunt. We waited till the moon had risen, then took two mules, and I proceeded with Tiger and John to our quarry, in order to fetch its skin and the best meat.
It was late when we got back to camp, still our appetite had been excited again, and instead of going to sleep, we sat joking round the fire, each with some spitted bear-meat before him. The coffee-pot also went the round, and the steaming pipe accompanied us to our buffalo hides, on which we lay conversing for some time. Clifton insisted that he ought to be rewarded handsomely by Königstein for saving his life by the pistol-shot, while the latter tried to prove to him that he had aimed too low to hit the bear's heart, and hence, as a punishment, ought to have its paw stuck on his hat. The answers, however, gradually became rarer, and we soon were all fast asleep. Excellent health, and a consciousness of strength, of which the polished world is ignorant, are the blessed companions of such a natural life; and no awful nightmare, no frightful dreams, such as visit the silken beds of civilization, venture to approach the hard couch of our Western hunters.
I was awakened by the cold about an hour before daylight; sprang up, poked the fire, which was nearly burnt out, wrapped myself in my buffalo robe, and fell asleep again soundly, till my comrades shouted to me that the coffee was ready. The whole neighbourhood was covered with a thick white rime, and though the frost was not heavy, we felt it severely. Our large fire, however, soon dispelled the cold, and we lay very cozily round it eating our breakfast. We soon mounted, crossed the stream without difficulty, and followed a buffalo-path up the hills. Our journey during the last day had been fatiguing for the horses, and, in spite of the long distance we had ridden, we had advanced but little northwards, so we gladly followed an easterly course, which brought us nearer the great prairies. From here we also noticed that the highest mountain peaks were a little farther to the west, and consequently off our track.
The sky became overcast, and in the afternoon it began raining, so that we were obliged to put our buffalo robes over us, and at night pitched our small tents to protect us from the heavy, incessant rain. Tiger, though, refused to crawl into the tent, but collected a great heap of brushwood near the fire, laid his saddle-cloth on it, sat down a-top, with his knees drawn up to his chin, and pulled his buffalo-hide with the hairy side out over him, tucking it under him, so that he looked like a huge hairy ball. During the night we were frequently obliged to feed the fire to keep it burning, and in the morning we saw no sign that the clouds were about to break. We could hardly distinguish the nearest peaks, and round our camp rivulets had formed that conveyed the rain to the valley. We could not think of starting, as all our traps were wet through. Hence we grinned and bore it; killed time with eating and smoking, and looked at our cattle, which, with hanging head and tail, let the rain pour off them.
Thus the whole day and the next night passed, and it was not till ten the next morning that we saw a patch of blue sky. This lasting heavy rain proved to me clearly that we were already in a more northern region, as in our country the showers are much heavier for the time, but never last longer than a day. We lay up for this day too to let the ground dry a little, and a strong cold wind which had sprung up helped to effect this. Our cattle had good grass, we were amply supplied with firewood, and had abundance of the best game, so that we wanted for nothing. John and Mac went out shooting together, and killed some turkeys and a deer, which they brought into camp on Sam. Tiger went out alone, and returned in the evening with two deer legs and a beaver, having surprised the latter on land while nibbling off the branches of a fallen tree. Our supper-table was hence splendidly covered again, and we greatly enjoyed the beaver tail, which is one of the best dishes the West offers.
Our various skins, tents, blankets, &c., were now tolerably dry, and the next morning we left camp and travelled northwards, towards the sides of the mountains, and the spurs they shoot out, into the great prairies. The sky was still covered with a few clouds, between which the sun shone warmly and pleasantly. Two days later we altered our course again to the west, in order not to leave the mountains, which here enclosed large patches of grass-land. Crossing these low mountain spurs, we passed through many extensive valleys with excellent soil, firewood, especially oak, and abundant water, which assuredly ere long will be sought by civilization advancing from the East. In the West the mountains now rose higher, and raised their white peaks far above the clouds. They were probably a hundred miles from us, and the horizon was enclosed by mountain ranges like an amphitheatre. The mountains rose higher and higher above each other in the strangest forms and colours, terminating in peaks on which the heavens seemed to be supported. Tiger called them the Sacramento mountains, which run southward nearly to Santa Fé.
One evening we reached a stream, which came down from these mountains through a rather wide valley, which Tiger told us was an arm of the Canadian river that falls into the Arkansas, between which and the Kansas the territory of the Delawares is situated. When a boy, Tiger added, he had often been hunting up this river and in these mountains with his father, and in a few days we should reach another arm of this river, on which his father's brother was torn to death by a grizzly bear. On that river there was a very large iron stone, which had fallen from heaven, and with which the god of hunting killed a Weico, who was hunting here improperly. When we reached the river bank, we found its water very turbid, and so swollen that we could not ride through, owing to the furious current. Hence we unloaded, though it was still rather early, and found ourselves on a steep bank, where the stream could not hurt us, even if it rose higher. Tiger was of opinion that the water would have run off by the next day, and enable us to continue our journey, as these torrents rarely last longer than a day. John and Mac went down the river to hunt, and Tiger went up it, while we looked after the cattle and prepared the camp. The first two came back early with an antelope, while Tiger was not in camp when night had settled on the mountains. I had heard him fire twice, and we were beginning to fear that an accident had happened to him, when he came out of the gloom into the bright firelight with his light, scarcely-audible step, but without any game, which was a rarity. He had fired thrice at a black bear, followed it a long distance, but had been obliged to leave it owing to the darkness, especially as he had hit it awkwardly, and it was strong enough to run a long distance. The night passed undisturbed, morning displayed a bright cloudless sky, and promised us a beautiful day; but the river had not fallen so much as we expected, and we preferred awaiting its fall here to going higher up and seeking a shallower spot.
The sun had scarce risen over the low hills in the east when I took my rifle and went down the river with Trusty to try my luck in hunting. I soon reached a low thin skirt of bushes, which covered the valley, and through which many small rivulets wound to the river. I had not gone far into it, when I noticed a great number of turkeys running about among the leafless bushes. I ran up to them, frequently crossing the brook, till I at last got within shot of an old cock, and toppled him over. I hung the bird on a tree, close to the brook which I fancied was one of those that came down the valley no great distance from our camp, and had scarce gone a hundred yards beyond the brook when I saw some head of game, which were too large for our ordinary deer and too dark-coloured, and yet did not resemble elks.
I crept nearer and convinced myself they were giant deer, which are not uncommon in the Andes. I shot at a very large stag, which had already shed its antlers, and it rushed upon me, but soon turned away, and I gave it the second bullet. It went some hundred yards bleeding profusely, so that I expected every moment to see it fall, then stopped, and I employed the time to reload and get within eighty yards of it. I was on the point of firing, when it dashed away and got out of sight. I put Trusty on the trail, and followed him, crossing the brook several times up the valley toward our camp, as I fancied. At length I saw the stag standing under an old oak, and I succeeded in getting within shot. I fired, and saw the bullet go home; but for all that the deer ran up a hill on the left and disappeared. My eagerness in following the animal was more and more aroused; I reloaded and went with Trusty after the bleeding trail over the hill and down the other side, then through a thicket in the valley and over another hill to a stream, where I at last found the stag dead. It was a splendid giant deer, distinguished from our royal harts by its size, blackish-brown coat, and proportionately higher forelegs. I broke it up, gave Trusty his share, and it was not till I was ready to start that I thought of my road to camp.
