"In this way [says Ashley] I have marched parties of men the whole way from St. Louis to the vicinity of Grand Lake, which is situated about 150 miles down the waters of the Pacific Ocean, in seventy-eight days. In the month of March, 1827, I fitted out a party of sixty men, mounted a piece of artillery (a four-pounder) on a carriage which was drawn by two mules; the party marched to or near the Grand Salt Lake beyond the Rocky Mountains, remained there one month, stopped on the way back fifteen days, and returned to Lexington in the western part of Missouri in September, where the party was met with everything necessary for another outfit, and did return (using the same horses and mules) to the mountains by the last of November in the same year."
This proves what good planning and proper organisation will do. Had Wilson Price Hunt been as scientific and as cautious as Ashley, his great traverse would have been exempt from the harrowing disasters which followed it so relentlessly. From that day to this, suffering and failure have more often been due to contempt for adequate preparation than to any other single cause.
The caravans of the Santa Fé Trail, also, moved with considerable regularity and order, but their make-up was more heterogeneous and there was no dominating control. Where there were many waggons, they marched in three or four parallel columns, "but in broken lines, often at intervals of many rods between." At night they were arranged in a quadrangle with a gap left at the rear corner as an entrance for the animals, which after grazing for a few hours were shut up in this corral of waggons. One of the difficulties was the stampede. This frequently started from some slight cause. The oxen, even if yoked, dashed at headlong speed across the plain, with the mules and horses intermingled. Oxen when frightened were the most difficult to control and did not recover their calm as speedily as horses and mules.
Mules were the most advantageous, but were also the most expensive. They possessed one characteristic which was useful as well as peculiar. They could detect the presence or the approach of an Amerind long before it could be learned in any other way, but I have seldom seen this peculiarity noted. It was indicated by a restlessness, a pricking up of the ears, and a general alertness as of a dog approaching game. When I have been riding a mule in the mountains, I have often been apprised of the approach of natives in this way, before I noticed any other sign. I am satisfied that no Amerind could ever approach on the windward a mule not accustomed to them, without being discovered. It used to afford us amusement when an Amerind guide tried to mount a mule, and we sometimes were forced to hold the animal securely till he could get on. With usual mule perversity, once the native was in the saddle the scene calmed, only to be repeated when he tried mounting again.
A cry of "Indians!" set the caravan in commotion, and amidst great excitement all prepared for defence. If the party were a large one it was seldom troubled, hence all who wished to cross combined, forming an annual caravan for mutual protection which went out and back at fixed periods, but sometimes small parties ran the risk of crossing alone.
An Old Beaver Haunt.
Photograph by F. S. Dellenbaugh.
In the winter of 1832-33, twelve men with their baggage and about $10,000 in specie left New Mexico for the States. They met a large body of Comanches and Kiowas, who approached one by one and in small bodies till they were all beside the travellers, who began to move on. A man named Pratt, trying to herd in two mules, was shot. A battle then opened. The white men made a breastwork of their packs and fought desperately for thirty-six hours, when they made an effort to escape in the night. The owners of the money told all to help themselves, and what could not be carried was buried in the sand, where the Comanches afterwards found it. The men stole away as quietly as possible in the darkness. Five went west and at last reached a Creek village near the Arkansas where they were kindly received. Only two of the others succeeded in getting out of the Wilderness.