CHAPTER VII.
DEER HUNTING—WILD BULLS—WILD FOWL—A DUCK GUN—DRIVING AN OX-TEAM—I REFLECT—AN ESTAMPEDE—THE TIGER CAT—RAINY SEASON—INDIAN FIRES—WASPS—WE ARE ROBBED BY THE INDIANS—I KILL A BEAR—CROSSING A SWOLLEN RIVER.
Christmas, 1850.
To render agreeable a life where men are thrown entirely on their own resources, the chief point is to ensure contentment, and nothing conduces more to this end than to apportion to each one of the party an equal and strictly-defined share of work. Forest life, in my case, never altered the relations that existed between myself and those in my employment, nor will real respect ever vanish under the familiar contact which such a life imposes.
I gave Barnes the woods and forests, which was not such a sinecure as it is here, as he had full employment for the winter in felling the red-woods, and splitting them into rails for enclosing the farm. Thomas undertook the “hewing and drawing,� the cooking, and the internal cleanliness of the house; and this latter is very essential in mountain life. Take everything out of your hut daily and hang it in the sun; then, water well the floor; this drives away the vermin, which abound in the deer and hare skins; it also ensures you against scorpions and centipedes, which are apt to introduce themselves into the firewood. It devolved on me to supply the larder, and the amount of exertion required for this duty varied considerably. One day an easy walk would bring me to a marsh, and a few shots from my double-barreled gun would secure as many wild-ducks as we required, but on another I might be doomed, after a long journey, to extend myself over the carcase of a buck, and then, exposed to a glaring sun, unaided, flay my quarry and disembowel him, quarter him, and carry him home piece by piece, over four or five miles of successive cindery hills. I had no stout little pony with a shaggy mane and tail, such as one sees carrying home the deer in Landseer’s splendid pictures. I had to take as much meat as I could “pick-a-back,� or else leave it to the coyotes, who would appear in sight whilst I was yet at work on the carcase. If this part of a hunter’s duty was entailed upon our fashionable deer-stalkers, many of the deer would reap the benefit, not so much by being flayed and carried home by members of the aristocracy, as in being left alone.
The monotony of this life was varied by excursions into the adjacent country, and these would last two or three days; during which time we left the hut to take care of itself; and, carrying each a rifle and a blanket, with a few other necessaries, we passed our nights by the camp fire, and in the day discovered wonders of nature that amply repaid us for our journey. The first object that attracted our attention was an immense hill of sulphur, and we discovered hot springs strongly impregnated with this mineral in its immediate vicinity. Round one of the springs was an apparently hard crust of sulphur, but this was treacherous, as Thomas found out, for it was the cause of his tumbling in and getting a medicated bath; and, although he soon dried, he smelt so strongly of lucifer matches for some days afterwards as to be almost unbearable. We brought some of the sulphur, which was very pure, away with us. We also discovered large craters, and igneous rocks, piled in such vast confusion as indicated the blind fury with which the earth had torn and rent itself on some former great occasion. The whole of California has been subjected to more than ordinary violent disturbances, but the vegetation of thousands of years has decomposed since then, and the huge rocks that were once hurled, red-hot, I dare say, into the air, are now deeply-embedded in the surrounding soil.
These excursions opened a new field for our rifles, for, whilst taking a bird’s-eye view one morning from the elevation on which we had encamped, our attention was arrested by the appearance of a herd of wild cattle. Having observed the direction in which they were grazing, and finding that, unfortunately, the direction of the wind prevented our heading them, I adopted a plan which proved successful. Carefully keeping them in sight from the rear, as I knew that water was not immediately ahead of them, I foresaw that towards sunset they would alter their course, and, guided by their instinct, graze towards the nearest spring. This they did in the afternoon; and having now a side wind, we hastened to look for cover in their line of march, glad to exchange the slip-shod pace at which for hours we had followed their movements, for a brisk double in the other direction. As soon as we had hit our line, I sent Barnes out to reconnoitre, and he immediately returned, having discovered the spring and a good cover a little in advance of it. We soon took up our positions, and before long the herd appeared in view: five black bulls, one a young one. They were most beautiful beasts, with sleek and glossy coats; thin in the flank, broad in the chest, and rather short of horn. They evinced uneasiness at once when within shot, and stared in our direction, snuffing the air and pawing the ground. As the young one presented his broadside, he fell on his knees to “shoulder-breaker� and, tail on end, went the rest of the herd at a long trot over the hills. We walked up to our friend to give the “coup de grâce,� but, through a want of caution, not usual with him, Barnes got a bad bruise, for the bull, by a sudden exertion, rose and plunged at him, catching him full in the chest, and knocking him down, then fell down himself, never to rise again. Barnes felt some pain for a day or two, which we allayed with the infallible castor oil: but I rather suspect his chief annoyance was caused by having been floored by a young bull, for whom, under ordinary circumstances, I think he was a match in physical strength.
Although wild cattle are not described as being indigenous to the country, I have no doubt, from their appearance, that these were so, and that their cows were not many miles away. It is vexatious to be obliged to leave a fine carcase to the wolves and vultures; but as a bullock is too much for three men, and we were far from home, we cut out the best part of it and returned to camp; and the coyotes made a fine noise, during the night, over what remained.
The wild fowl now came over in heavy flights and settled in our vicinity. The geese were in incredible numbers; white and grey geese and brant. Of ducks we had several varieties, many of them quite unknown to me, and I regret that I failed, from want of materials, in my endeavours to preserve specimens of them. The geese are very easily shot when first they arrive, but soon become very wary. The easiest and best plan is to construct little huts of green stuff near the marshes they frequent, and you are sure of good flight shooting at daylight. I had a large duck-gun that I had used in punt-shooting in Norfolk, but it was very rebellious, and kicked so, when used from the shoulder without a rest, that I placed it under Barnes’s especial charge; and whenever he felt in particularly good health, he went out with it, and you might see him returning with geese and ducks suspended from every part of his body; his face wreathed in smiles at his good fortune; but the next morning would disclose a bruise on his right shoulder of about the size and colour of a certain popular green dessert plate. Herons and curlew were plentiful, and very tender, jack-snipe in great abundance, but I never disturbed them, for I am a bad snipe shot, and the first rule in the mountains is to spare your powder. Hares and partridges were in abundance, yet were also spared, as we wished them about the place; but rabbits were rather scarce and very small. If the love of sport, therefore, was sufficient to chain one to this spot, the above enumeration will show that we had not only ample occupation, but variety; yet I determined on adding farming to my other amusements, and although it recurred to me that when I gave up “gentleman farming� in England, I registered a vow to leave such things to those who better understood them, I thought there could be no danger in trying “an acre of maiden soil.�
It was our custom of an evening, after our supper was over, the fire piled up with blazing oak logs, and each man had lighted his pipe and received a noggin of schnappes, after the fatigues of the day, to congregate in one room and there, after lighting a candle, one of us would read a book aloud. I had a good stock of books, though they travelled in a small compass, and as they were, for the most, by Fielding, Smollett, De Foe, Le Sage, Goldsmith, and that class of writers, they all bore reading twice, and more than twice; so that our evenings were passed very sociably. Barnes, too, who was an uneducated man, was taking instructions in writing from Thomas, and began to learn in this wild spot what they never tried to teach him in the Christian village where he first saw the light. One evening these amusements were set aside for the discussion of the subject of the cultivation of a piece of the farm. Onions were at this time commanding fabulous prices in San Francisco; and a very simple calculation proved, as distinctly as possible, on paper, that one acre planted with onions would realise an enormous profit, provided the onions came up. To ensure this last important point, I engineered a ditch, which was to convey water for their irrigation from our stream; and leaving the others to carry out these works, I started on foot for San Luis, where I arrived, after two days, very footsore. I procured a plough, a waggon, a yoke of strong American oxen, and a fresh supply of groceries, and I then paid a flying visit to San Francisco in a small fishing-boat, and returned to Sonoma with seeds of all kinds, a box of horse-radish roots, which came in very well afterwards with wild bull, and about 500 fine young fruit-trees. The difficulty now was to get my ox-team up to Russian River, for I knew nothing of driving oxen. However, I took lessons from an American teamster; and, as there are but two words of command, and each one, when delivered, is accompanied by a crack on the head of the ox nearest to you, I found the beasts soon recognised my voice and style of hitting. But I had several rather impetuous streams to pass, some of which were scarcely fordable, for the rain had set in; I was doubtful, therefore, as to the method to be adopted in forcing my team through these. This, my instructor informed me, could only be accomplished by “talking freely to the oxen;� and, to my demand for a specimen, he jumped on the waggon, and working himself into a state of apparent phrenzy, he stamped and swore, and beat them, and cracked his whip, and execrated them until they both broke into a round trot. I profited by his advice, and got through my gulches in safety, and I can only hope that the “freedom of speech� I indulged in was justified by the circumstances of the case.