About the first of November, the four of us left the ranch for San Francisco. There we bought four tickets for New York for eight hundred dollars, and each man belted a thousand dollars in twenty-dollar gold pieces around him. Our ship was the John L. Stephens, and carried about a thousand passengers, besides a large quantity of freight. It was my first experience on the water, and as we sailed out through the golden gate and into the open sea, I had many misgivings and wished myself back upon the plains among the Indians. But in a little while I grew accustomed to life on the ship and really enjoyed the whole trip. At some point on the coast of Old Mexico the ship anchored and took on board a drove of beef cattle, and that was the only stop between San Francisco and Panama.
When we reached Panama the ship anchored about a mile from shore and little black natives rowed out in small boats to carry the passengers in. When the boats reached the side of the ship, they were hoisted by ropes to a level with the deck, loaded with passengers and lowered again to the water. The natives grabbed the oars and away we went. All passengers remained in Panama over night, and next morning a train of pack mules was lined up for the overland trip. We rode twenty miles on mules to the Charges River, then down the river in boats twelve miles and then eight miles by railway to Aspinwall. The ship, George Law, was waiting for us, but it required two days to get all the passengers and baggage across the isthmus and loaded. During that time we remained in Aspinwall. It was a wonder to me that the task could be finished so quickly. There were a thousand passengers—many women and children—and the sick who had to be carried on stretchers by the natives twenty miles over the mountain to Charges River. Besides, the road was a mere pack trail through rocks and cliffs, often very steep and very rough. To make the task more difficult, the passengers of the George Law—about as many as were on the John L. Stephens—were making the trip in the opposite direction to take our ship back to California. Those were busy days for the natives.
The George Law steamed right up to shore against a rock bluff and the passengers walked directly over the gang plank on to the ship. When all was ready the seamen hauled in the cables and we sailed for New York. The sea was very rough all the way—that is, it seemed so to us. We landed at Key West, but remained there only a few hours and stopped next time at New York City. As the passengers started for shore the captain told them to look out for their pocket books. We had done that back in San Francisco when we put on our belts.
Our first thought on landing was clothing. We were dressed for summer time, as the climate we had been in required, but it was winter in New York, with deep snow on the ground. The afternoon after landing saw us duly provided with plenty of warm clothing and tickets by railroad and boat to St. Louis—railroad by way of Buffalo, Toledo and Chicago to Quincy, and from Quincy to St. Louis by boat. At St. Louis brother Robert was taken sick and we all remained there a week. The usual course from St. Louis home was by stage, but we met a man named Andrew Jackson from Holt County, who told us if we would pay him stage fare—twenty-five dollars each—he would buy a span of mules and a carriage and drive us through—as he needed both the mules and the carriage at home. This arrangement was made and we left St. Louis about the middle of December. The weather was very cold, snow a foot deep or more, and the roads very rough in many places. One pleasant thing about the trip was that we always had good, warm lodging places for the night along the road. Towns were close enough together to enable us usually to reach one of them and put up at the tavern, but if we failed in this, we always found good treatment at the farm houses by the way.
A few miles west of Keytesville, Chariton County, we put up one night with a man named Tom Allen, who had a hundred head of steers ranging from two to four years old. They were exactly what we wanted, but were so far from our starting point that we were uncertain whether we could take them. He asked three thousand dollars for the herd. Next morning we looked them over carefully, and told him if he would keep them until the first of April we would take them. He agreed to this and we paid him a thousand dollars down and continued our journey. He was a complete stranger to us and we to him, but in those days men seemed to have more confidence in one another. No writing of any kind was entered into and we felt not the slightest uneasiness about getting the cattle.
We reached home Christmas day, 1853, having made the trip in less than two months.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Another Trip Across the Plains With Cattle.
From Christmas until the middle of March, 1854, the time passed rapidly, with mother and father and with visits to old friends and acquaintances. On April first, according to contract, we arrived at Tom Allen's in Chariton County, and paid him the balance of two thousand dollars—in gold—and got our hundred head of cattle, all in good condition. As we passed Brunswick, we bought one hundred more and attempted to ferry the whole herd across Grand River in a flat-boat. We cut off a bunch and drove them down the bank on to the boat. They all ran to the farther end of the boat and sunk it, and the cattle went head foremost into the water. All swam back to the same shore, but one steer. He swam to the other side and ran out into the brush. We could do nothing but watch him go and gave him up for lost. A strange thing happened in regard to that steer. Just a year later, I found him on our ranch in California—the same marks and the same brand, besides my recollection of him. There could be no mistake about it. I can account for his presence there easily, for at that time many men were driving cattle across the plains. Some one found him and drove him along and, after arriving, as ranches were large and unfenced, he wandered with other cattle up into our ranch.