CHAPTER IV.
CHOLERA ON THE “YELLOWSTONE.”
Before La Barge arrived in St. Louis the company had dispatched two boats to the upper river—the Yellowstone and the Assiniboine. The voyage of 1833 is particularly noteworthy as the one on which Prince Maximilian of Wied made his celebrated visit to the upper Missouri—a visit which has done more than any other one thing to preserve a true picture of those early times. The Yellowstone went only as far as Fort Pierre, whence she returned immediately, and as soon as another cargo could be shipped, started on a trip to Council Bluffs.
CHOLERA ON THE “YELLOWSTONE.”
Captain La Barge went back up the river on this second trip of the Yellowstone to return to his post. It proved to be a most trying and pathetic voyage. The cholera, which was then epidemic throughout the country, broke out with great virulence on the boat, and so many of the crew died that Captain Bennett was forced to stop at the mouth of the Kansas River until he could go back to St. Louis for a crew. His pilot and most of his sub-officers were dead, and he was compelled to leave the boat in care of young La Barge, who thus began his career as a steamboat man on the Missouri. His several voyages had given him considerable knowledge of the art of handling these boats, and he had no misgivings in being left in charge, except the fear that the cholera might take him off. It was a very trying moment. Captain Bennett, when he started back to St. Louis, cried like a child. The terrible power of the disease unstrung everyone’s nerves. Victims often died within two hours after being attacked, and no one knew when his turn would come.
Scarcely had Captain Bennett left when a new difficulty arose. The “graybacks,” as the scattered population of western Missouri were then called, having learned that the Yellowstone had cholera on board, organized themselves into a pro tempore State board of health and ordered Captain La Barge to take the boat out of the State, or they would burn her up. The engineer and firemen were dead, so Captain La Barge fired up himself, and, acting as pilot, engineer, and all, succeeded in getting the boat above the mouth of the Kansas and on the west shore of the river, outside the jurisdiction of the State of Missouri.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
The Yellowstone had a quantity of goods on board consigned to Cyprian Chouteau’s trading post, which was located some ten miles up the Kansas River. Captain Bennett had directed La Barge to turn over these goods to the consignees during his absence. Accordingly, at the first opportunity, he set off alone on foot to find the trading post and tell Mr. Chouteau to come and get his goods. When about a mile from the post he was met by a man who had been stationed there to watch for anyone coming from the Missouri. The news of the cholera was abroad and the lonely post had quarantined itself against the civilized world. The man would not permit La Barge to come nearer, and threatened to shoot him if he persisted. La Barge agreed to stay where he was if the man would return to the post and carry his message to Chouteau. This was done, and Chouteau sent back word to store the goods on the bank and leave them there. It was now too late to return to the boat that night after a fatiguing day’s work, and La Barge would have had to go supperless and coverless to sleep but for the kind offices of his old college chum and former companion in misfortune, Edward Liguest Chouteau, who happened to be at the post. Hearing of La Barge’s situation, he went to find him. He reached his friend’s bivouac about midnight and found him trying to pass the night in some comfort around a large bonfire. He brought something to eat and a large buffalo robe to sleep on, and La Barge got through the remainder of the night very well.
DISTRESS SIGNAL UNANSWERED.
While the Yellowstone was lying above the mouth of the Kansas the Assiniboine passed down on her return trip.[8] La Barge signaled for assistance, but Captain Pratt would not stop. “It was pretty hard,” observed the captain, in narrating this affair. “I never refused to answer a distress signal, even if the boat were engaged in the strongest opposition; but our two boats were in the same trade, bound to assist each other, and yet we were left there alone in the severest straits, with no idea when we should be relieved.”
BURIALS ALONG THE MISSOURI.