NIGHT TRAVEL, FROM ARID WASTES TO LIMPID WATERS.
From the Sink of the Humboldt the little Darby party wished to complete the trip by the Carson Route, thus separating from the majority, but their supplies were exhausted and they had now but one ox and one cow to draw their wagon. A suggestion, that those who could spare articles of food should divide with the needy, was no sooner made than acted upon. Sides of bacon, sacks of flour and other substantials were piled into their little vehicle, and the owners of the two oxen which had been loaned Darby simply said, "Take them along; you need them more than we do." Danny, alias "Gravy" Worley, being of that party, showed his delight, by sparkling eyes and beaming fat face, when he saw the abundance of edibles turned over to his people. Mr. Darby shed genuine tears of gratitude, as we bade them good-bye and drove away by another route.
The combination train was further divided, each party shaping its farther course according to the location of its final stop. The Drennans took the Carson Route, the Maxwell train proceeding by the more northerly, Truckee, trail. The associations of the plains, closer cemented by the sharing of many hardships and some pleasures, had created feelings almost equal to kinship, more binding than those of many a life-long neighborhood relation. So there were deep regrets at parting.
On leaving the Sink of the Humboldt there was before us a wholly desert section, forty miles wide. The course led southwesterly, over flat, barren lands, with a line of low hills, absolutely devoid of vegetation, on our right. This was known to be one of the hard drives of our long journey; but hearsay knowledge was also to the effect that, at its farther border, we would reach the Truckee River, and soon thereafter ascend the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The prospect of seeing again a river of pure water, and fresh, green trees, had a buoyant effect on our lagging hopes; and these were further stimulated by the information that not long after entering these forest shades we would cross the State line into California.
While crossing the forty miles of desert, the sun-baked silt, at the beginning, and later the deep, dry sand, made heavy going. To avoid the almost intolerable heat of day as much as possible, and it being known that water was not obtainable, during this much-dreaded bit of travel, we deferred the start until mid-afternoon, and traveled all night.
The impressions of that night ride were most extraordinary. As the sun sank, and twilight shaded into night, the atmosphere was filled with a hazy dimness; not merely fog, nor smoke, nor yet a pall of suspended dust, but rather what one might expect in a blending of those three. Only a tinge of moonlight from above softened the dull hue. It was not darkness as night usually is dark. It was an impenetrable, opaque narrowing of the horizon, and closing in of the heavens above us; which, as we advanced, constantly shifted its boundary, retaining us still in the center of the great amphitheater of half-night. We could see one another, but beyond or above the encompassing veil all was mystery, even greater mystery than mere darkness. No moon nor stars visible; nothing visible but just part of ourselves, and ours.
As the night merged into morning, the sunlight gradually dispelled the mantle of gloom from our immediate presence; but still we could not see out. As if inclosed in a great moving pavilion, on we went, guided only by the tracks of those who had gone before.
In the after part of the night the loose cattle, having been for two nights and a day without water, and instinctively expecting an opportunity to drink, quickened their pace, passing the wagons; the stronger ones outgoing the weaker, till the drove was strung out two or three miles in length along the sandy trail.
Some of the wise-heads in the company were fearful that the cattle, on reaching the Truckee River, would drink too much. They detailed Luke Kidd and me to ride on our mules ahead of the foremost of the stock, and on reaching the river, permit none of the animals to drink more than a little water at a time.
We went ahead during all that long morning, following what was surely, to us, the longest night that ever happened, before or since. Most of the other members of our party were in the wagons, and they, except the drivers, slept soundly; rocked gently, very gently, by the slow grinding of the wheels in the soft, deep sand. But Luke and I, on our little mules, must keep awake, and alert as possible, in readiness to hold back the cattle from taking too much water.
From midnight to daybreak seemed a period amounting to entire days and nights; from dawn till sunrise, an epoch; and from sunrise to the time of reaching the river, as a period that would have no end.
As the sun finally rose behind us, the faintest adumbration of the nearest ridges of the Sierras was discerned, in a dim, blue scroll across the western horizon, far ahead—how far it was useless to guess; and later, patches of snow about the peaks.
The minutes were as hours; and their passing tantalized us: noting how the dim view grew so very slowly into hazy outlines of mountains, and finally of tree-tops.
On we labored, overcoming distance inch by inch; nodding in our saddles; occasionally dismounting, to shake off the almost overpowering grasp of sleep.
Half awake, we dreamed of water, green trees, and fragrant flowers. Rising hope, anon, took the place of long-deferred fruition, and we forgot for a moment how hard the pull was; till, with returning consciousness of thirst and painful drowsiness, we saw the landscape ahead presented still another, and another line of sand-dunes yet to be overcome.
Luke and I reached the Truckee at nine o'clock in the forenoon, just ahead of the vanguard of cattle, and about three miles in advance of the foremost wagon.
We tried to regulate the cattle's consumption of water, but did not prevent their drinking all they could hold. Ten men, on ten mules, could not have stopped one cow from plunging into that river, once she got sight of it, and remaining as long as she desired. We could not even prevent the mules we rode from rushing into it—that cold, rippling Truckee. Yet our elders had sent us two boys to hold back a hundred cattle, and make them drink in installments—in homeopathic doses, for their stomachs' sake.
They dashed into the stream en masse; and seeing the futility of interfering, we gladly joined the cattle, in the first good, long, cool swallow of clear, clean water, within a period of six weeks.
Our little mules did not stop till they reached the middle of the river, and stuck their heads, ears and all, under the water. Luke's diminutive, snuff-colored beast was so overcome by the sight and feel of water that she lay down in it, with him astride, giving herself and her master the first real bath since the time that she did the same thing, in the Platte River, some three months previously.
To us, the long-time sun-dried, thirsty emigrants; covered from head to foot with dust from the Black Hills, overlaid with alkali powder from the Humboldt, veneered with ashes of the desert; all ingrained by weeks of dermatic absorption, rubbed in by the wear of travel, polished by the friction of the wind—to us said the Truckee, flowing a hundred feet wide, transparent, deep, cool; rattling and singing and splashing over the rocks; and the sparkle of its crystal purity, the music of its flow and the joy of its song, repeated, "Come and take a drink."
We filled our canteens and went back to meet the others. We found them in a line three miles long; and it was well into the afternoon when the last wagon reached the river.
The train crossed to the farther shore, into the grateful shade of the pine forest and there made camp.
What an enchanting spectacle was that scene of wooded hills, with its varying lights and shades, all about us! From as far as we could see, up the heights and down to the river bank, where their roots were washed in the cool water, the great trees grew.
We were still within the confines of Nevada, but two men were there with a wagon-load of fresh garden stuff, brought over from the foothills of California to sell to the emigrants: potatoes, at fifty cents a pound, pickles, eight dollars a keg, and so on. We bought, and feasted.
The camp that night by the Truckee River was the happiest of all. We had reached a place where green things grew in limitless profusion, where water flowed pure and free; and we were out of the desert and beyond the reach of the savage Redman.