We found sixty thousand Indians at Ft. Laramie to draw their pay from the government. All were camped across the river north of the Fort. As we left Ft. Laramie we rode over and stopped for our mid-day meal. They gathered around us, made signs, tried to swap ponies with us and pretended to be, and were in fact at that time, very friendly with us. I remember an amusing incident that occurred at this time. Brother Isaac had a little Spanish mule which he offered to the Indians for a pony. The Indians asked if the mule was gentle. Isaac told them it was perfectly so, and in order to prove it, he jumped upon the mule bareback and with nothing but a halter to control it by. The mule had carried a pack all the way from Sacramento, but this was a new experience. He immediately bowed his back, stuck his head down between his knees, and began bucking. In a twinkle, Isaac was rolling ten feet away in the sand. I never saw anything give as much delight as this gave the Indians. They whooped and yelled and kept it up. Now and then it would subside and then break out again. We joined the Indians and laughed as heartily as they; everybody enjoyed it but brother Isaac. It was like most funny things, no fun at all to somebody.
About 2:00 o'clock we started down North Platte. The soldiers warned us to look out for scouting parties of Indians, and our own experience told us this was good advice. We met with no trouble, however, and reached the mouth of South Platte in good time. On this ride from Ft. Laramie to South Platte I think we must have seen hundreds of thousands of buffalo. They were so tame they would hardly give us the road. We had all the good buffalo beef we wanted every meal. A while before camping time, one of our party would ride ahead, pick out a good place where water and fuel could be had. He would then ride out to the closest buffalo herd, pick out a fat yearling, shoot it, and have it ready when we came up. It was short work to make a fire, make our bread, make the coffee and broil a fine buffalo steak. I have never enjoyed any meals in my life more than these. There was only one trouble about this method of getting our meat—the wolves kept us awake most of the night fighting over the carcass. In order to avoid this we usually dragged the carcass out of hearing of the camp. On the trip down from Ft. Laramie we noticed one day a great herd of buffalo far in front of us and a little to the right of the trail, which seemed to be grazing on the hillside in a circle. As we came nearer we made out the situation more clearly. Hundreds of them grazing, heads outward, formed a complete circle in which there must have been a thousand little calves all lying down. On the opposite hillside a half mile away, we saw about twenty savage wolves watching the herd. The buffalo were watching also. They knew the wolves were there and they were protecting their calves against them.
When we reached Ft. Kearney we learned that the Indians on Little Blue were on the war path, so kept on down Platte River fifty or sixty miles farther, and then passed across the country where Lincoln now stands, and reached the Missouri River at old Ft. Kearney, where Nebraska City is now situated. We crossed the Missouri River into Iowa and thence down the east side of the river. About the middle of the afternoon one day, we crossed the Missouri line, journeyed on to night, and went into camp without a guard, the first in three months. We passed Jackson's Point and Oregon, in Holt County, and reached Jimtown, Andrew County, where we stopped for the night with Drury Moore, a cousin of ours, and slept in a bed, the first in three years. Next day we reached home.
We rode up, driving our pack mules loaded with blankets, bread pans, frying pans, coffee pots, tin cups, and sacks of provisions; hair and beard long and unkempt and tanned as brown as Indians. Mother, sister Mary and brother Isaac's wife were the only members of the family at home and they came out on the portico of the house to watch us. They were not expecting us for two years, and of course, thought the caravan they saw belonged to strangers. When we began climbing off our horses and fastening the pack mules to the fence, they fell back into the house. We hitched, got over the fence, and walked up to the door without being recognized. In fact, we had a real hard time convincing them that we were really ourselves, and I am not very much surprised that they should not have known us. The dirt, sand, wind, sun and the grimy life we had led for more than six weeks without a shave or a hair cut was enough to disguise us.
We reached home about the middle of September, 1851. It was a delightful thing to be at home once more, but in order to carry out our plans we had little time to spare during this season of the year. Prairie hay grew in great quantities on the old farm and it was now in perfect condition to be cut and cured. We rested only a day or two, then sharpened up the scythes and went to work. We cut and cured twenty or thirty tons of this hay in order that we might have something to feed the cattle on as we collected them together. After this was done, we had a good long period of rest. Christmas came and we entered into the fun with the young folks. I think I shall never forget this winter at home.
About the first of January, 1852, we began buying cattle and kept it up throughout the remainder of the winter. By the first of May we had five hundred and fifty head collected upon the old farm ready to start.
[CHAPTER V.]
Across the Plains With Cattle.
The first days of May found us on the banks of the river at the mouth of Black Snake. Most of the men went along with the first load of cattle ferried across the river. As the cattle were driven out on the farther shore, the men corralled them and held them on a sand-bar to await the slow process of bringing the whole herd across. Elwood bottom at that time was a perfect wilderness of timber with only an Indian trail leading through it out as far as Peter's Creek. After much delay, the last of the herd was ferried over and then came the wagons, oxen, horses and mules.