While we were waiting the change of mail at Lower Le Sueur, the deputy sheriff asked me to get out of the stage, and said to me: "Major [I was called major in those days], had we not better take another look at those fellows in the stage? They are going out of the country when everybody is coming in. It looks to me suspicious." I agreed with him, and took another look. I at once discovered that they were both dressed from head to foot in new slop-shop clothes, indicating the necessity for an entire change of costume, and I concluded from this clue there were sufficient grounds to suspect them. So the deputy sheriff said: "You hold the stage ten or fifteen minutes, and I'll go to Henderson, and take out a warrant, and arrest them on the arrival of the stage; so that, if we are mistaken, no particular harm will be done." He started on. I got my hand-bag out of the boot, and buckled on my six-shooter, all of which was seen by the thieves, who must have fully understood the program; at least, such must have been the case with the Frenchman, as subsequent events led me to doubt whether the German was a participant in the theft, or more than a mere deserter. I had a sense of uneasiness about the double-barrelled shotgun carried by the German, but I thought I could handle the other man. We started, and, much to my relief, when we reached the ferry over the river, the German fired one barrel of his gun at a pigeon, and snapped several caps on the other, which refused to go off. As we approached Henderson, quite a crowd had gathered at the hotel to see the arrest, and just as the stage swung up to the sidewalk, the Frenchman took out of his pocket a small penknife, the largest blade of which could not have been over four inches long. He opened it so quietly that it did not excite my apprehensions in the least, although I had my right hand on my six-shooter, intending to draw and cover him the moment the stage stopped. He made a desperate lunge at his breast with the knife, and handing me a carpetbag which lay on his lap, he said, "The money is all in this bag, sir," just as if we had been talking the whole matter over. I, fearing that he might strike at me with the knife, drew my revolver and struck him sharply over the knuckles, making the knife fly out of the window, and seizing him by the throat with my left hand, I covered him with my pistol. The stage stopped. Retaining my hold on him, and still covering him with my pistol, we got out of the stage, on the sidewalk. He wavered for a second, and fell dead. He had put the knife an inch into his heart. I found in a belt on his body, and in the bag $5,320 in gold, which I deposited in the United States land office, at Henderson, subject to the order of Major Cullen, who got it all in good time. The Frenchman had in his pocket some letters from a lady in Strasburg, written in French, conveying some very tender sentiments. I never thought he was a bad man, but had yielded, as many do, to a strong temptation, and had decided to die rather than be captured. It was not more than twenty minutes before we were on our way to St. Paul. As no evidence connected the German with the theft, he was sent back simply as a deserter.
A curious question arose as to the reward. Major Cullen insisted on giving it to me. I knew very well that, had it not been for the superior detective sagacity of the deputy, the thieves would never have been caught, so I refused it, as I would have done under any circumstances. Then the sheriff claimed it, and finally the major left its disposition to me, and I divided it between the sheriff and the deputy, partly because I thought it just, and partly to keep the peace in the sheriff's official family. Where the extra $320 came from, or where it went, I never knew nor cared.
THE PONY EXPRESS.
As western settlement progressed after the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France in 1803, it gradually extended up the west side of the Mississippi, until the State of Missouri was admitted into the Union, in 1820, which was followed by the States of Iowa and Minnesota, along the line of the Mississippi, and Kansas and Nebraska, on the Missouri. The Mexican War occurred in 1846, and as one of its fruits California was ceded to the United States, and was admitted to the Union in 1850. The territory which now composes the States of Washington, Oregon and Idaho was finally determined to belong to our country by the treaty with Great Britain, which was signed July 17, 1846, fixing the boundary line between us and the British possessions at the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude. These extreme western acquisitions gave us an immense coast line on the Pacific Ocean, leaving a stretch of country between our Pacific and central possessions, on the Missouri, of considerably over two thousand miles in extent, which was uninhabited by whites, and composed the hunting grounds of many savage tribes of Indians and the pasture ranges of countless herds of buffalo. This vast area of country was practically unknown and unexplored, although it had been crossed by the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, in 1805-1806, John Jacob Astor in 1811, Captain Bonneville in 1832, Marcus Whitman in 1836, and John C. Fremont in 1843, to which sources of information may be added the prejudiced reports of the Hudson Bay Company.
When California was ceded to us by Mexico, very little was thought of it as an acquisition to our possessions. It was looked upon as a country out of which a small trade in hides and tallow might grow, but nothing more. I have heard it denounced on the floor of the house of representatives, in Washington, by some of the wisest statesmen of the day, as a bear garden, unfit for the use of civilized man; but prophets usually make bad work of matters about which they know absolutely nothing, which was the case with California in 1848. However, adventurous spirits soon found their way there, as they have always done in Western America, and in 1848 or 1849 gold was found accidentally by Captain Sutter, in digging a mill-race on his ranch, which discovery at once settled the status and fortunes of California. The news soon reached the States, and spread like a prairie fire on a windy day. All the subsequent gold excitements of Frazier river, down to and including the Klondike, have been insignificant in comparison. I was in New York at the time, and used to sit on the East river wharves, and see the ships sailing away for distant California with an insatiable boyish longing to join in the procession.
There was no way of reaching the promised land except by a voyage around Cape Horn or an overland trip from western Missouri across the great American desert, the Rocky and Sierra Nevada ranges of mountains, either of which routes necessitated a weary and dangerous trip of nine months' duration. The usual plan adopted in the East was to form a company of about one hundred or more men, calculate the probable expense to each, and divide it, purchase an old whaling ship, fit her up with bunks and cooking appliances, and get an outfit and sail. Of course, there was nothing involved in the enterprise but the departure, the voyage and the arrival at San Francisco. No steamer had ever crossed the ocean at this time, and all navigation was done in sailing ships. So great was the rush that a scarcity of ships was soon felt. I remember distinctly on one occasion, when an old played-out vessel, purchased by a party which proposed to take out a printing press and start the first newspaper, was seized by the maritime authorities and condemned as unseaworthy just as she was leaving port. The next morning she was gone, and made one of the quickest and most successful voyages of the emigration. It is a curious fact that, out of all the ships that enlisted in this hazardous enterprise, not one was lost or seriously damaged.
The overland route involved more dangers and hardships than the one by sea. Many people died on the way from exhaustion and disease, and many were killed by the Indians, but the emigration never ceased, or even lessened, from these reasons. I have followed the trails made by these emigrants in the Sierra Nevadas, and it seemed almost impossible that animals could have climbed the precipitous mountain slopes they encountered. These hardships, however, did not go unrewarded, because to enjoy the distinction of being a "Forty-niner" was ever afterwards a badge of nobility on the Pacific Coast.